The novel was first published in 1958 and tells the story of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp who risk their lives to hide a young Polish-Jewish boy.
After being librated, he worked for the East German state-run national film production company DEFA and as a radio play author.
The boy, named as Stefan Cyliak in Apitz's novel, was revealed to be based on Stefan Jerzy Zweig after publication of the novel.
[1] The book has been translated into 30 languages[2] and published in 28 countries.
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