The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood

An Amazon Best Biography & Memoir and Best History Book of the Month!

An epic story of the triumph of good over evil.

The soldiers of D Company could not believe their eyes as they came face-to-face with the human cost of Hitler’s evil: two teenage boys--survivors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald--who had escaped.

The Boys in the Light follows the parallel journeys of Company D and Eddie Willner, the author’s father, as they are caught up on two sides of World War II.

At sixteen, Eddie Willner was among the millions of European Jews rounded up by Hitler’s Nazis. He was forced into slave labor alongside his father and his best friend, Mike, and spent the next three years of his life surviving the death camps, including Auschwitz. Meanwhile, in the United States, boys only a few years older than Eddie were joining the army and heading toward their own precarious futures. Once farmers, factory workers, and coal miners, they were suddenly untested soldiers, thrust into the brutal conflicts of WWII.

A company of 3rd Armored Division tankers, led by 23-year-old Elmer Hovland, quickly became battle-hardened and weary, constantly questioning whether the war was worth it. They got their answer when two emaciated boys stepped out of the woods with their tattooed arms raised.

The Boys in the Light is a testament to survival against all odds, the strength of the bonds forged during war and the resilience of the human spirit. This extraordinary true story is a must-read for fans of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, and Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile.

Nina Willner is the author of Forty Autumns, which Publishers Weekly called ＂a thrilling and relevant read,＂ and which is still being feverishly read by book clubs eight years post-publication. Prior to her writing career, Nina was a U.S. Army intelligence officer who served in Berlin during the Cold War. Following her career in intelligence, Nina worked in Moscow, Minsk, Prague, Ottawa, and Istanbul promoting human rights, children’s causes, and the rule of law for the U.S. government, nonprofits, and a variety of charities. She has three grown children, and after a life living abroad, has settled in Washington, DC. Her father, Eddie Willner, survived the Holocaust, and this is his story.