Members of the Boys were held in Nazi labour and concentration camps and used as slave labourers.
From 1933-1945 Nazi Germany operated over 1,000 concentration camps and subcamps in its own territory and across German occupied Europe. Among them was the Kattowicz subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.
As the camps were dissolved thousands of people among them members of the Boys endured horrific evacuations from the camps on foot, in freight wagons and open top trains, as well as perilous journeys across the Baltic Sea.
The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

The former Auschwitz concentration camp.
On 31 January-1 February 1945, prisoners held in the Kattowitz subcamp in the city of Katowice were evacuated along with 50 Gestapo members by truck to Kłodzko. Kattowitz is the German name for the Polish city of Katowice. They stayed there for a month. From there they were deported on a rail transport to Ölsnitz near Dresden. They remained there until liberation.
Others among them members of the Boys were sent on a death march and death train to Mauthausen concentration camp.