NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 11, 2026--
Award-winning writer and Sunday Times bestselling author Michael Calvin and globally renowned collator of Holocaust testimony Rabbi Naftali Schiff will release the incredible true story Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber at Auschwitz with Harper Horizon on June 9, 2026.
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A miracle unfolded on October 10, 1944, at Auschwitz. Amid the gas chambers and crematoria, a ragtag group of Jewish boys, aged thirteen to seventeen, were marched naked into Crematorium 5, their names already crossed out in Nazi ledgers as gestorben — “dead.” They would soon be put to death in the infamous gas chambers.
But just moments before Zyklon B pellets were released, fate intervened: Three German officers arrived on motorbikes and ordered their evacuation, selecting them to unload a consignment of potatoes from Greece.
This is their astonishing story. Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber in Auschwitz illuminates their incredible journey from the brink of death to lives of profound purpose and resilience.
Experience the raw emotion, the struggle for survival, and the lasting power of faith amid unimaginable cruelty. These boys—who endured concentration camps, death marches, and constant dehumanization—rebuilt their families and became living testaments to hope.
Through archival research, survivor testimonies, and haunting personal accounts, Miracle gives voice to a chapter of Holocaust history that was nearly lost. It reveals how a single twist of fate and the strength of the human spirit changed the course of so many lives.
“At a time of denial and disinformation, it is more important than ever to tell the stories of Holocaust survivors,” said Michael Calvin. “Once their voices fade away, other, more malign, influences will have an opportunity to flourish. The boys who share their experiences in Miracle speak for their generation, to a world that must be reminded of the truth they represent.”
“After a twenty-year international search to identify eyewitnesses to the most extraordinary Holocaust story I had ever encountered, I conducted six in-depth interviews across three continents,” said Rabbi Naftali Schiff. “The lucidity, authenticity, and moral courage of these boys, now in the twilight of their lives, compelled me to bring the stark truth of their experience to light. In an age marked by distortion and diminishing historical memory, their undeniable testimony must be heard.”
An instant Sunday Times Bestseller in the UK, Miracle is more than a historical account; it is a memorial of tears, defiance, and unimaginable dignity, urging us to remember and carry forward their legacy for a better future. Their courage echoes through time, reminding us that even in history’s darkest moments, the light of humanity can prevail.
Miracle will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. You can pre-order today at: https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/9781400255580/miracle/.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Michael Calvin is an award-winning writer and Sunday Times bestselling author whose books have been hailed for their insight and influence. He has collaborated with such celebrated sportsmen as Sir Alastair Cook, Dylan Hartley, and Gareth Thomas, and is the only writer to win the British Sports Book of the Year award in successive years. Most recently, and in a wider context, he has collaborated on critically acclaimed autobiographies of Toby Gutteridge, a quadriplegic former Special Forces soldier, and of Josef Lewkowicz, a Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter.
Rabbi Naftali Schiff is a leading social entrepreneur and innovator who has conceived and built numerous successful educational organizations working to ensure Jewish futures. He is also a globally renowned collator of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and a documentary filmmaker. He has personally interviewed over two hundred Holocaust survivors to ensure their testimonies, legacy, and values are preserved for future generations. Naftali is committed to constantly identifying new pathways and vehicles in order to inspire today’s younger generation.
ABOUT HARPER HORIZON:
Harper Horizon is a Nashville-based imprint of HarperCollins Focus focused on the stories, values and diverse voices of Americana and beyond, publishing authors such as Shea McGee, Penn & Kim Holderness, Willie Nelson, Luke Russert, and more. For more information, please visit www.harpercollinsfocus.com/Harper-Horizon.
Courtesy of Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus.
NEW YORK (AP) — A House committee on Wednesday expressed bipartisan support for ensuring Transportation Security Administration officers get paid during future government shutdowns and are equipped with the latest technology, discussing the agency's future as the Trump administration lobbies to make airport screening a job for private contractors.
Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing on ways to modernize the TSA nearly 25 years after it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But the morale of TSA officers who went without pay during three funding lapses since Oct. 1, and whom the administration wants to replace at small U.S. airports, overshadowed the talk about better machines and reliable funding.
“Between the 2025 and 2026 shutdowns, transportation security officers endured a total of 119 days impacted by shutdown conditions," Republican Andrew Garbarino of New York, the committee’s chairman, said in his opening remarks. "That means TSA officers spent roughly 40% of this fiscal year reporting to work without a paycheck while continuing to carry out one of the most important security missions in the federal government.”
Several other committee members noted that Congress has failed to pass any of the pending bills seeking to guarantee continued pay for TSA workers. Rep. Lou Correa, a California Democrat, said if TSA workers don't get paid during shutdowns, neither should lawmakers.
Correa also took aim at President Donald Trump's proposed budget, which in addition to spending $477.3 million to have private companies take over airport screening at about 250 smaller airports would cut more than 4,500 TSA positions to save $529.3 million in compensation and benefits. The TSA this week also authorized contractors in its airport staffing program to acquire and maintain screening equipment, which previously was strictly a government function.
“Technology alone can’t replace the experienced people who make the security checkpoints work as they have for the past 25 years,” Correa said. “It's about pushing an antigovernment privatization ideology.”
About 20 U.S. airports already staff their checkpoints through the Screening Partnership Program. Currently airports choose whether or not to opt in. Under Trump's proposed budget, smaller airports would be required to participate.
The TSA has proposed letting private screeners handle security at airports with scheduled flights of passenger planes with 10-30 seats and ones that accomodate charter flights and private planes without fixed schedules. Examples include Oxnard Airport in California, Ocala International Airport in Florida, Alabama's Tuscaloosa International Airport and Gary-Chicago International Airport in Indiana, according to a spreadsheet maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The witnesses at the hearing included Christopher Sununu, president and CEO of the airline trade group Airlines for America; Dallas Fort Worth International Airport CEO Chris McLaughlin; American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley, whose union represents TSA workers. All three said they thoughts airports should get to decide whether to employ private screeners.
“Ensuring SPP remains an option for airports and does not become a mandatory program is paramount to the U.S. aviation industry,” Sununu said.
Kelley took a strong stand against the plans in Trump's budget.
“I'm totally against the privatization of any airport,” he said. “You don't contract out the CIA, do you?”
After several more Democrats on the committee said they thought that handing off airport security to businesses would leave U.S. airspace more vulnerable, Garbarino interjected to point out that “the very conservative cities of San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta” all use private screeners at their airports, “so yeah, maybe it's not a Republican thing.”
Garbarino and Rep. Tim Kennedy, a New York Democrat, championed legislation he and three other committee members introduced earlier this month that would double, from $250 million to $500 million, the amount of money the TSA administrator is required to set aside to reimburse airports for capital costs associated with security. The bill also would establish an annual TSA fund of $250 million for airport screening technology.
Revenue for both would come from a $5.60 fee that airline customers pay for each one-way trip they take on U.S. flights. The 9/11 Passenger Security Fee has existed since 2002, but Congress decided in 2013 that a certain amount had to be used each year to reduce the federal deficit. Since then, an estimated $15 billion went to the U.S. Treasury for that purpose, according to the bill's co-sponsors,.
“Americans and Congress expected this fee to directly fund our aviation security system, but that is not the case. Nearly half the fee's revenue goes to something else,” Garbarino said. “Congress must restore the passenger security fee to its original intent, to fund the next generation of screening technology that protects our people in the skies.”
Trump's fiscal 2027 budget proposal would end the practice of diverting passenger fees and fund the TSA partly with the $1.68 billion that was expected to go to deficit-reduction.
FILE -The badge and TSA logo patch are seen on the uniform of a Transportation Security Administration employee at one of the security checkpoints inside Lambert- St. Louis International Airport Oct. 7, 2010, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
FILE - People wait in line at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
FILE - Travelers walk with their luggage past TSA agents at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Nov. 13, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
