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.
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