Uri Orlev (; 24 February 1931 – 25 July 2022) born Jerzy Henryk Orłowski, was a Polish-born Israeli children's author and translator. He received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1996 for his "lasting contribution to children's literature", the Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary Works in 1972 and the Bialik Prize for literature in 2006. Biography Uri Orlev was born in 1931 in Warsaw, Poland, the son of a physician. During World War II, his father was taken captive by the Russians and he lived with his mother in the Warsaw Ghetto until she was killed by the Nazis. A relative hid him and his brother in the ghetto until he was caught by the Germans and deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1943. As a prisoner in Bergen-Belsen, he wrote and recited poetry which would later be published by Yad Vashem in 2005. He survived the Holocaust and was liberated by the British Army in 1945. He and his brother emigrated to Israel and were placed in kibbutz Ginegar. They were joined by their father in 1954. After finishing high school on the kibbutz, Orlev served in the Israel Defense Forces as an infantryman. Upon completing his regular military service, Orlev returned to the kibbutz and began working in the cowsheds. He continued to serve as a reservist and subsequently fought in the Suez Crisis, Six-Day War, and Yom Kippur War. While living and working at Ginegar, Orlev began imagining short stories. He typically spent his weekends traveling to and from Haifa to watch movies there along with a German-born kibbutznik named Shlomo. During their bus rides, Orlev would tell his stories to Shlomo, who urged him to write them down. After writing a rough draft, Orlev was granted permission by the kibbutz to spend a year with the family of Eliyahu Soloveitchik, a man he'd met in Bergen-Belsen who was living near Haifa. While there, he continued writing his manuscript, which would become his book The Lead Soldiers. He returned to Ginegar where he resumed his work in the cowsheds, and had the book published in 1956. In 1968, Orlev and his family moved to the Yemin Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. He began writing children's literature as a profession and ended up publishing over 30 books, which are often biographical, about his childhood during the Holocaust or his early years in Israel, and from an accessible