By the time Stephen Matthews was six years old, he had been bombarded by the Luftwaffe and deported from Nazi-occupied Guernsey, along with his family, to a prison camp in the heart of Hitler’s Third Reich. He had seen men die in front of him, walked with Jews straight off the cattle truck from Bergen-Belsen, and had his hand broken by a German guard. And yet, he also rode in the basket of the deputy camp commandant’s bicycle and walked his dog. For a child, the world of a Nazi prison camp was often terrifying and bewildering, but also full of adventure. 

Told through Stephen’s own extraordinary experiences, as well as writing from his mother’s diaries and previously unpublished photos of historical significance, The Day the Nazis Came Here is an utterly unique memoir. Above all, it pays tribute to the preciousness of childhood, and shows that human kindness may be found in the unlikeliest of places.