The Boy from Block 66 is a nonfiction Holocaust narrative by Limor Regev that reconstructs the life story of Moshe Kessler, a Jewish boy from Berehove whose childhood is destroyed by the Nazi occupation and deportations during World War II.shortform+ narrative
The book follows Moshe from his early years in a close-knit Jewish community in Berehove, where his life is marked by ordinary family routines, school, and religious tradition, through the rapid descent into persecution once Hungary falls under Nazi influence and Jewish restrictions and roundups begin. He and his family are deported, and Moshe is pushed through the machinery of the Holocaust: ghettos, transport in cattle cars, and arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau.barnesandnoble+2
At Auschwitz, an older inmate urges him to lie about his age and separate from his mother and younger sibling in order to be selected for labor rather than immediate death, a forced decision that becomes one of the central traumas of his life. From that moment he is effectively alone, his family’s fate unknown, and he is thrust into an adult world of brutality, starvation, and constant threat while still emotionally a child.christianbookaholic+3
In early 1945 Moshe is transported to Buchenwald, where he is assigned to Kinderblock 66, the children’s barrack that gives the book its title. Block 66 was unusual: it was deliberately used by members of Buchenwald’s clandestine resistance to concentrate and protect underage prisoners, keeping them away from the most dangerous work details and SS scrutiny as much as possible.ynetnews+4
Within Block 66 Moshe forms a crucial bond with another boy from his neighborhood, Shani (Sandor), and together they help each other endure hunger, disease, forced labor, and the constant fear of selections and executions. As the Germans prepare to evacuate the camp and send prisoners on new death marches, the underground resistance works to hide and shield the children, contributing to the survival of many of Block 66’s inmates until Buchenwald’s liberation in April 1945.millermosaicllc+4
Liberation does not bring an immediate sense of freedom or closure for Moshe; instead, he faces chaos, displacement, and the difficulty of physically getting home in a shattered Europe with wrecked transport systems and millions of refugees on the move. He returns to his hometown to find it transformed—stores empty, buildings damaged, and the Jewish community largely destroyed, underscoring that there is no simple return to “before.”shortform+1
The book traces Moshe’s painful attempts to reconstitute family connections: he locates his cousin Ilona, learns that his mother survived but that his younger sibling was murdered at Birkenau, and eventually reunites with his mother in a fraught, emotionally complex meeting. In the postwar years he lives on a farm in the Sudetenland with his mother and her new husband, taking up agricultural work as he struggles with memories, grief, and a sense of stolen youth.shortform+1
Over time Moshe emigrates and builds a new life in Israel, creating a family and a future even as he continues to carry the psychological scars of the camps and the unresolved mourning for those who did not survive. As an older man he begins to speak more openly about his experiences, seeing testimony as a moral duty to educate younger generations and preserve the memory of the murdered.shortform+2
Regev structures the book as a first-person–style account, giving readers access to Moshe’s inner world—fear, numbness, survival instincts, and later his efforts to process trauma—while grounding his story in documented historical details about Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Block 66. Major themes include the abrupt end of childhood, the role of chance and small decisions in survival, the importance of solidarity among prisoners, and the long tail of trauma in postwar life.goodreads+3
The narrative also highlights the organized efforts of political prisoners and underground networks in Buchenwald who risked their own safety to protect children, complicating the image of prisoners as purely powerless. Overall, the book functions both as an intimate survival story and as a didactic work meant to bear witness to the Holocaust and affirm the resilience of the human spirit in conditions designed to extinguish it.vocal+5