Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

Wow! Deeply.... I don't know what the right word is....
Satisfying. Disturbing. Touching. Poignant.

I've always been interested in Holocaust-related books, because I've been fascinated by what drove the people to act the way they did, be it a Nazi SS officer, a German soldier, a non-Jewish person living in the Nazi-occupied countries, a partisan, a Jewish person living among the populace in fear, or a Jewish prisoner in the camps. What motivated them? To stay? To keep quiet? To turn a blind eye? To take action? Was it as simple as just finding ways to survive one more day?

What would you do if you knew the person whom you hold responsible for the deaths of your dearest family members was thriving in the same city as a wealthy benefactor of the people? Not only that, he pretends to be a part of the very group of people he stole from, persecuted and murdered? Would you do everything you could to bring that person to justice? Or let him be because revenge is a double-edged sword? To grab and wield it, you'd have to hurt yourself, too. Maybe even more than the target? Would you still do it?

What would you do?

~ Spoiler Alert ~

Ben Solomon knew what he had to do. Just as his would never forget the faces of his beloved parents and sister, he would never forget his face.

Ben knew the respected civic leader and a wealthy philanthropist Elliot Rosenzweig was the former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. How? Once, they were raised together as brothers by Ben's parents who took pity on the abandoned Polish boy. Otto's parents picked Solomon's family because they were good, kind, and wealthy people. 

With the starting of World War II, Otto started off behaving the way one would expect someone in his circumstances to behave - showing gratitude, consideration and willingness to assist his adoptive family in any way he could. However, as time passes and he rises in the ranks of the very organization Ben's father asked him to join to become an undercover agent of sorts, his transformation into the monster he ended up being began.

What I found fascinating is Otto/Elliot character. Though Ben is the protagonist and the main character, the transformation of Otto/Elliot is the mystery that drive the events in the book.

Otto's parents were hardly likable people. His father was a drunkard who couldn't hold a job and abandoned Otto to Ben's parents. His mother had run away from them before his father left him at Solomon's home. They did come to fetch Otto after a couple of years, but Otto refused to leave the Solomon household. For six years, Otto lived with the Solomons as a member of the family.

When the WWII erupted, Otto's father was involved with the Nazi's in Poland, and Otto's mother was working for Reinhard Heydrich. As the situation in Poland worsened, Ben's father persuaded Otto to work for the Nazis to gather information for the Jewish population. It seemed to go as planned, at least in the beginning. 

Now, what fascinated me is the question of nature vs. nurture. 
Was Otto destined to be the Butcher of Zamosc from the beginning? 
Or at least the Butcher of some other place? 
That his DNA was riddled with flaws that would always create a monster at the end? 

According to the book, when Otto lived with the Solomons, he was treated equally with Ben and his younger sister. Ben and Otto shared a room together for six years. When his parents first came for him, he refused to go and defiantly proclaimed that the Solomons were his family. But what happened the second time?

There's a Korean saying - Blood doesn't lie, inferring that nature will overcome nurture (a son of a murderer will commit murder, etc.). The scary part of this book was that Otto wasn't an intentionally cruel or horrible person in the beginning, but he was a selfish man. The amalgam of his small, weak flaws resulted in a monster who did so much harm with his inactions as much as his actions.

But there's also another saying - if you don't know the person, look at those who are close to the person, and you'll get a pretty good idea of his character. It might have been such that with his selfish nature, he was greatly influenced by his peers, other Nazi soldiers, and officers. Over time, Otto began to sympathize with the way his peers saw the world rather than what he should have known in his heart. He should never repay love and kindness with anything other than love and kindness.

Either way, this book will stay with me for a long time.

I would recommend this book to WWII history lover.

P.S. - There are some parts in the book that I find incredulous, but it didn't take away the appreciation for the book.

Maid by Kimberly Cutter

We know the story. How it starts and how it ends. So, why bothering reading another book about Joan of Arc?

Well, this book superbly fills in the periods between the historically documented events.

~Spoiler Alert ~

This is a story of Jehanne whose beloved older sister is raped and murdered by the English. Their father grieved the death of his favorite child like a madman - screaming, sobbing at the sky, and hurling himself against trees. When he finally returned home, he slept. For a year. 

When his father came out of this grief-stricken lethargy, he became clairvoyant. He saw terrible things about Jehanne's future in his dreams, and they horrified him. Jehanne suffered beatings at his hands before, but after her sister's death, she could not walk for a week after one of his savage beatings. 

The more he tried to control her life, the more defiant she became, in little ways he couldn't directly detect. Then the final straw came when he arranged a marriage for Jehanne. After having watched the wretched lives of women around her, Jehanne would rather die than get married and lead a miserable life with a husband who would beat her. 

She decided she'd rather die.

About the same time, her voices came to her. The voices told her to do things that were impossible for a peasant, let alone a peasant girl to accomplish. She was instructed to raise an army and to drive the English from France. She must lead the Dauphin to Reims to be crowned. How was she to accomplish all this? 

Well, she started by teaching herself to ride and fight. Then she raised her army by persuading one important man at a time. The courage to face the entrenched enemy and the tenacity to stay with the struggle when she was betrayed by the very man she was trying to crown king of France was inspiring.

How did she do it? Or the better question is, why did she do it? Why didn't she just walk away? Others have. Other knights and men have abandoned their struggle and went back to their homes, why not Jehanne?

She knew she would die. She had an inkling of how painful her death would be, but she stayed the course, even after it seemed as if her voices abandoned her, too. But as soon as she followed God's instructions, the voices came back. Finally, she was able to face her horrific death with comfort and peace.

I can't imagine what it would like to have your greatest fear or joy (depending on how you look at it) come to life. I don't think it'll be a blessing to hear voices in my head, even if they tell me they are angels. How do I know they're who they say they are?

I'd like to believe Jehanne was very human. That she felt all the joys, sorrows, humiliation, rejection, and rage that anyone would feel under the circumstance, but she marched forward and followed God's will.

But I kept thinking - why didn't she just walk away? 

Or could she walk away, even if she wanted to? 

Did she have anything to walk away to?

Had she walked away and returned home, what would await her? 

I think she'd be a ruined woman - situated uncomfortably somewhere between a saint and a whore. Ruined either way. Who'd want to bed a saint? That would be blasphemy, right? And remember, she wore men's clothing and intermingled with them freely. Either she'd have to get married and she'd rather die than marry. Or she might be locked away in a convent for the rest of her life. Maybe a horrific, heroic death was better than slow, spiritual death by physical, emotional, and mental abuse. Bodily death would follow in time. Maybe too slowly.

I recommend this book because it won't let me go. I keep thinking about it, even several weeks after reading it.