The boy, whose real name is Srulik and calls himself Jurek as a camouflage, is almost nine years old when a helper smuggles him out of the Warsaw ghetto, takes him into the woods and abandons him to his fate with a group of Jewish children in hiding.

He made it through to the end of the Second World War, and it was a miracle that he survived: he encountered help and betrayal everywhere, sometimes closely intertwined in time, he suffered an accident at work while in hiding and lost his arm in the hospital because a doctor recognized him as a recognizes Jews and does not want to treat them.

And finally, the greatest miracle of all, he is allowed to do what should be normal for a child of his age, go to school.

In which he learns so eagerly that he skips a few classes.

Tilman Spreckelsen

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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"Run, boy, run" is the name of Uri Orlev's 2001 novel, which, like many others, he wrote closely based on a true story.

In 2014 his film adaptation by the German director Pepe Danquart was released in cinemas.

The fate of children left alone is at the center of several novels by the Jewish author, who was born as Jerzy Henryk Orlowski on February 24, 1931 in Warsaw, was taken to the city's ghetto after the Wehrmacht invaded and later survived Bergen-Belsen.

As in the novel The Lead Soldiers, he portrays the events from the perspective of his young protagonists, who must develop instincts and judgment unnaturally quickly if they want to survive, as well as toughness and a knowledge of who to trust.

Growing up in Israel

Because of course it's always about the adults, those who are no longer there and can't offer the children the childhood they deserve, as well as those who, as strangers, as chance encounters, decide about life and death.

After the war, Orlev came to the Middle East via Paris with his brother and grew up in the new state of Israel.

In "A Kingdom for Eljuscha", published in the original in 2010 and in German a year later, Orlev also talked about it in a mediated way: What it's like to exchange a refuge that has become home for a new refuge, a well-fortified state that which is intended to protect those who were exposed to the most appalling persecution elsewhere because of their Jewish identity - and how laborious it is to build such a state, how conflict-prone dealings with neighbors are.

For him, curiosity and hope were central concepts in writing children's literature.

He has received many awards for this, including the Hans Christian Andersen Prize for his life's work.

Uri Orlev died in Jerusalem on Tuesday.