Prisoner B-3087

Alan Gratz · Ruth Gruener · Jack Gruener

Mar 2013 · Sold by Scholastic Inc.

About this ebook

From Alan Gratz, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Refugee, comes this wrenching novel about one boy's struggle to survive ten concentration camps during the Holocaust. Based on the inspiring true life story of Jack Gruener.

10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside? Based on an astonishing true story.

Ratings and reviews

Great book, but was disappointed in the end to find out this is a work of fiction. I felt duped once I read that. Thought I was reading the whole truth about Jack's experience. While I'm sure these horrors absolutely happened to these prisoners, to find out this man's story is fiction sort of ruins that connection you have with Jack. I hate fiction. I wouldn't have purchased and read this book had I known prior.

It makes you cry, cringe and laugh all at the same time. A very serious and depressing book but it's all to educate you on the torturous events during the holocaust. Many people that you feel close to just by words may die and the ending isn't what you want it to be but you can't change history.

This book is one of the greatest, yet saddest books I've ever read. I read it when it first came out and ever since then I felt like I needed to read more of these books. I wasn't much of a reader before I read this now I have read other survivors books and I almost feel like they deserve something from me.

About the author

ALAN GRATZ is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including Two Degrees, Ground Zero, Allies, Grenade,Refugee, Projekt 1065, Prisoner B-3087, Code of Honor, and Captain America: The Ghost Army, an original graphic novel. Alan lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter. Look for him online at alangratz.com.
Ruth Gruener was born Aurelia Gamser in 1930s Poland. Ruth and her parents survived the Holocaust by hiding in the homes of gentile families. After World War II was over, Ruth and her family moved to the United States, where Ruth tried to start an ordinary teenage life in Brooklyn. Ruth married Jack Gruener, another Holocaust survivor, with whom she lived in Brooklyn until Jack's passing in 2017. They have two children and four grandchildren. Until her death in 2021, Ruth worked as a docent at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown Manhattan and traveled all over the country to speak to schools about her and Jack's experiences in the Holocaust.