Once We Were Brothers

The Monday before Thanksgiving in 2004, Catherine arrives at Jenkins & Fairchild to clear out her desk. While there, Jenkins tells her that Elliot found Otto Piatek in Cleveland and has men staked outside his house; however, they haven’t yet seen the suspected Nazi. Given this information, Jenkins offers Catherine her job back if she’s willing to drop the case. Suspicious of the Cleveland story, Catherine refuses and leaves the building “unencumbered by misgivings” (226).

Ben continues his story: With only a half tank of gas and no papers, Ben seeks refuge for his family at the mill house. But as he approaches the resistance encampment, he sees Irek’s body hanging from a tree. Other dead bodies litter the area. They find Lucyna, who says Nazis killed most of the fighters. She also tells Ben of a Catholic priest named Father Janofski in the nearby town of Krasnik who works with the Polish resistance movement.

In Krasnik, Ben asks Janofski for help. The priest allows Hannah, Leah, and Lucyna to pose as nuns and puts Abraham to work as a document forger. Meanwhile, he tells Ben to drive the car back to Zamosc so it cannot be traced to his church.

Ben drives as far as he can before running out of gas, then hides the car in some bushes on the outskirts of Zamosc. Over the next four days Ben walks 40 miles back to the church.

In 2004 Liam learns that Elliot founded his first insurance company in 1948, posting a multimillion-dollar cash reserve despite arriving in the United States only a year earlier, penniless by Elliot’s telling.

Back in 1942 there is a large Nazi presence in Krasnik that conducts regular raids of Janofski’s church. For that reason, Hannah, Leah, and Lucyna must dress and behave as nuns at all times, while Abraham must remain locked in the secret basement with his forgery materials. Ben poses as a caretaker, and later on he serves as a resistance courier for Janofski, transporting documents and clothing.

This chapter is set on Thanksgiving Day in 2004. Catherine invites Liam, Ben, and various members of her family for dinner. Catherine’s brother-in-law Frank is put off by Ben’s habit of talking to the ghost of Hannah. Ben explains that visions of Hannah come as a kind of sense memory associated with certain sounds or smells—in this case, Chopin’s piano suite Krakowiak inspires the visions.

Outside the window, Liam sees a parked gray Camry, and the two men inside match the description provided by Stefan Dubrovnik. Liam confronts the men, taking pictures of them and their car.

In Janofski’s church in Krasnik there is a radio antenna that picks up Allied stations providing reports of Hitler’s struggles against British and American troops. From fall 1942 to winter 1943, the family continues in a holding pattern, hoping to wait out the war. In December they learn that the Russians are close to breaching the Polish border.

On June 8, 1944, Ben and the others learn that American and British forces landed on Normandy Beach. When Ben rushes to tell Hannah, he finds that she is gravely ill. Janofski calls on Dr. Groszna, who diagnoses Hannah with scarlet fever and advises that she be quarantined.

Hannah recovers, but the Gestapo’s suspicions are higher than ever. Weeks later, a dozen German soldiers storm the church and tear it apart until they find Janofski’s radio antenna and Abraham’s forgery room in the basement. After rounding up all the church’s residents, Ben sees that the soldiers’ leader is Otto Piatek. As his surrogate father, Abraham pleads with Otto for mercy. Otto kicks him. Ben pleads for mercy as well, but Otto is unmoved, telling him, “Always the smart one, the privileged one, who could talk his way out of everything. Not this time, Ben. Now it’s the son of a woodcutter, not the coddled child of Jewish wealth, who’s calling the shots” (266).

Otto’s only idea of mercy is to load the women to Auschwitz rather than kill them immediately. On Otto’s orders, Abraham is shot, Janofski hanged from the steeple, and Ben brought in for interrogation. Otto tortures Ben for three days, but he does not break, so Otto sends him to the Majdanek extermination camp. On July 23, 1944, shortly after Ben’s arrival, the Russian army liberates the camp.