Peter Lantos

Peter’s latest book is an extraordinary true story of his childhood. As a boy of five he was deported from a small provincial town in Hungary to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the fateful summer of 1944. His father died there of starvation, but he and his mother survived. This is a story of love, hope and survival.

This book (see Books) published at the beginning of 2023 has enjoyed a remarkable success: it has not only sold over 22,000 copies during the first year, but also was translated into several European languages. It had been shortlisted for two literary prizes: the 2024 British Book Awards and the 2024 UK Literacy Association Awards. It won the second, in the category of Information Books.

The prestige of this award is that it is the only children’s book award in which books are selected and judged exclusively by teachers.

As a survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Peter has been involved in Holocaust education during the last dozen or so years; first at schools, but later at various organisation and public bodies. Last year Peter was particularly busy giving talks including in 2024:

• to MPs at Portcullis House
• in The Scottish Parliament
• at the Scottish Civil Service
• the Metropolitan Police

He has been invited to talk in 2025 at:

• the Ministry of Defence
• the Ministry of Work and Pensions
• Cambridge University Higher Education, and so on.

For this work he was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in HM The Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2020 for Holocaust education and awareness (see Biography). He already has invitations for next year, including one to the Northern Ireland Assembly.