Once We Were Brothers
By: Ronald H. Balson
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Griffin
Published: Oct. 8, 2013
Genre: Thriller
The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust.
Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice. Solomon persuades attorney Catherine Lockhart to take his case, revealing that the true Piatek was abandoned as a child and raised by Solomon’s own family only to betray them during the Nazi occupation. But has Solomon accused the right man?
Once We Were Brothers is Ronald H. Balson’s compelling tale of two boys and a family who struggle to survive in war-torn Poland, and a young love that struggles to endure the unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust. Two lives, two worlds, and sixty years converge in an explosive race to redemption that makes for a moving and powerful tale of love, survival, and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit.
Ronald H. Balson is an attorney practicing with the firm of Stone, Pogrund, and Korey in Chicago. An adjunct professor of business law at the University of Chicago for twenty-five years, Balson now lectures on trial advocacy in federal trial bar courses.
A few years ago, Balson was hired by his Chicago law firm to represent it in a case centered in southern Poland, the location of his book. For the next four years, he made multiple trips back and forth, and while there, he interviewed witnesses, studied documents and came to know more about the town of Zamosc. He learned that, during the World War II years, the Polish culture and country were destroyed and “sadness still pervades” there.
Balson started his own publishing company, Berwick Court, in order to self-publish his book, and as word of mouth spread, Once We Were Brothers became a runaway bestseller. St. Martin’s Press Griffin will now be publishing the trade paperback edition this October 2013.
