“The Brothers Of Auschwitz” By Malka Adler Is A Lesson On The Power Of Words

One word can change your emotions as you read

Words matter. It’s a lesson we forget about and relearn over and over again. But any time we see things in the news, we remember it.

We remembered it when Trump tweeted, “Liberate Michigan!” and terrorists created a plot to kidnap the state’s governor. We saw it when Trump made wild theories about the election and extremists rioted at the capital.

We see it on both sides of the political spectrum when people claim the other side is no different from Hitler. And people start applying those lessons when the people start demanding apologies and explanations for things people said years ago.

In 2021, I wonder if we’re finally learning how powerful our words can be. People finally recognize “I’m sorry.” doesn’t fix things every time you hurt someone. People are taking time to unlearn past destructive behaviors to try to be kinder and better. Slowly, we’re building the world to a better place.

Part of getting there is to acknowledge the bad behavior of the past and remember the stories so we know how to be better. The Brothers of Auschwitz by Malka Adler is a story that shows us how other people’s words and actions can still affect us decades after some of the darkest parts of our history.

Adler is careful with her words as she writes the story of these two brothers. She does it so well that one word would make me pause and take the time to let my emotion pass. And it opened my eyes to how the Holocaust affected the survivors years after it happened.

What Is The Story About?

Yitzhak and Dov are two brothers who lived on a farm with their family in Hungary when the Nazis forced them out of their homes and into concentration camps.

At the end of the war, the boys move to Israel and start new lives. They marry, start families, and become friends with the author’s family. They talk about what happened to them after being freed from concentration camps. Everything that happened to them in Auschwitz and beyond stayed with them for the rest of their days.

Both brothers have difficulties adjusting to life after the camps. Yitzhak can’t set foot in a hospital anymore. Dov is always hungry. Both boys are so wary of trains that they can’t leave Israel, even after finding out their sister survived the Holocaust. They can’t leave Israel now that they settled. Something as simple as a fart can give them a flashback.

The Genre Is Fiction But The Brothers Are Real

I had a hard time figuring out if the story was true or not. The first few pages said the book is a work of fiction based on personal memories. When I read the Author’s Note at the end, I realized Yitzhak and Dov were real people! If they were real, why is the story considered fiction?

The author’s known the brothers since she was small. One of the brothers stayed in her home when she was a baby and often talked about how much he liked hearing her cry because it was a sign of life. What about that could possibly be fiction?

These men were real people telling their stories. Adler mentioned in her Author’s note that she took a tape recorder with her when she talked to both brothers. She brought it with her when she spoke to their sister, Sarah, in New York.

I will never understand why this story got the fiction label. If the brothers, and their sister, are real people, why is this story fiction?

One Word Set Off My Emotions And Kept Me Dwelling

There aren’t a lot of words to keep a person thinking. Not a lot of words can set off a stream of emotions. But some can.

It amazes me how many words there are for being sad and the ways we think of them. When I hear the word cry, I instantly think of a little kid who lost their favorite toy. The word sob makes me think of someone who’s under way more stress than they need and can’t take it anymore.

And then there’s the word weep. Writing that word makes my eyes start tearing up, and I need to step back from the computer. The story had so much weeping in it. I’d think about it as I went through the rest of my day. I thought about the weeping in the shower, when I tried to have lunch, and even when I had intimate moments. All I could think about was the weeping.

At first, I thought it was the story that had a hold of me, and that’s why the word weep affected me so much. But long after I stopped reading it, the word affects me. Maybe because it’s a word we don’t hear people say a lot, and that’s why the word has such an effect.

Whatever it is, I don’t fight it. I did in the beginning to finish the book. But now, I don’t.

It’s The First Time I Ever Gave Thought To What Happened After The War

When we read stories from World War II, we’re always reading about people helping Jewish people escape the camps. You read stories of people who hid Jewish people in random places in their houses. You read about being in the camps. Until The Brothers of Auschwitz, I’d never read a story about what happened to the survivors.

Until this book, I never read a story about where the survivors went after the war. It never occurred to me some of the efforts to help survivors ended up killing some of them. I never realized the trauma of the camps could stay with the survivors for the rest of their lives.

I never thought about how hard it was for survivors to get used to taking a shower without fear of getting gassed. It never occurred to me that many would still steal food from one another long after the war ended. It surprised me that traveling to a new shelter could make a survivor fearful they’d be going back to the Germans after the war. And that all of these problems could last for the rest of their lives.

With Dov, he never stopped eating. No matter how much food he ate during the day, he still felt hungry. Yitzhak can’t go inside a hospital no matter how badly he needs a doctor. His grandchildren have to go to him if he wants to see them. Their sister, Sarah, can’t go anywhere near a barbecue anymore.

The brothers were teenagers when the Holocaust happened. The trauma from their time in the camps lasted for the rest of their lives.

Final Thought

Horrifying stories like The Brothers of Auschwitz need to be recorded and told, no matter how terrible they are. Without these stories, a wave of historical fiction could make dark moments like the Holocaust look like a Disney film. And that’s the last thing we want to see.