The Stone Crusher

The True Story of a Father and Son's Fight for Survival in Auschwitz

By: Jeremy Dronfield

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was arrested by the Nazis. Along with his 16-year old son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany, where a new concentration camp was being built. It was the beginning of a five-year odyssey almost without parallel. They helped build Buchenwald, young Fritz learning construction skills which would help preserve him from extermination in the coming years. But it was his bond with his father that would ultimately keep them both alive. When the 50-year old Gustav was transferred to Auschwitz - a certain death sentence - Fritz was determined to go with him. His wiser friends tried to dissuade him - “If you want to keep living, you have to forget your father,” they said. But that was impossible, and Fritz pleaded for a place on the Auschwitz transport. “He is a true comrade,” Gustav wrote in his secret diary, “always at my side. The boy is my greatest joy. We are inseparable.” Gustav kept his diary hidden throughout his six years in the death camps - even Fritz knew nothing of it. In it he recorded his story, a tale of survival and a father-son bond which proved stronger than the machine that sought to break them both.

©2018 Jeremy Dronfield (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. This audiobook is published in arrangement with Chicago Review Press c/o Susan Schulman Literary Agency.

the stone crusher

well read, how can some one beat true life, in order for tomorrow to understand and learn they have to learn from the past . the brave to tell of it.

Truth, well told.

Should be read by many; staggering detail and beautiful story of a father and son.

Hauntingly beautiful

This is probably one of the best holocaust stories I've heard to date! I'm ready to listen to it again

sooooo good! so sad and inspired!

heart-wrenching Tale of Father and Son making it through a Nazi hell. what strength, courage!

A story of perseverance through unimaginable trial

Very touching, hard to imagine the hell they went through, how they were treated as subhuman. This can never happen again