The Boy Who Didn't Want to Die

A story of survival, of love between mother and son and
of enduring hope in the face of unspeakable hardship. An important
read.
The Boy Who Didn't Want to Die describes an extraordinary
journey, made by Peter, a boy of five, through
war-torn Europe in 1944 and 1945. Peter and his parents set out
from a small Hungarian town, travelling through Austria and then
Germany together. Along the way, unforgettable images of adventure
flash one after another: sleeping in a tent and then under the
sky, discovering a disused brick factory, catching butterflies
in the meadows - and as Peter realises that this adventure
is really a nightmare - watching bombs falling
from the blue sky outside Vienna, learning maths from his mother
in Belsen. All this is drawn against a background of terror,
starvation, infection and, inevitably, death, before Peter and
his mother can return home.


Professor Peter Lantos is a Fellow of the Academy
of Medical Sciences and in his previous life was an internationally
renowned clinical neuroscientist. His memoir, Parallel
Lines (Arcadia Books, 2006) was translated into
Hungarian, German and Italian. Closed Horizon (Arcadia,
2012) was his first novel.


Peter was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2020 for 'services
to Holocaust education and awareness'. He is one of
the last of the generation of survivors and this - his first
book for children - will serve as a testimony to his experience.



Peter lives in London.