The Journeys of Brothers
by
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Tears streamed down our faces. Muffled sobs filled the audience. Never had anything we’d seen had such an emotional impact. But it wasn’t a Hollywood production; it was reality. It was 1945 and Lowell Thomas was speaking in that clear unemotional mellifluous tone, his hallmark in newsreels. But this wasn’t a bombing raid or an attack on the beaches of Normandy or an enemy fighter being incinerated by a flame-thrower. This was Poland. This was Dachau. The emaciated living had a vacuous expression, barely distinguishable from the corpses being plowed into a mass grave, their bulging eyes, staring, as tons of earth were thrust into the hole, their final resting place.
Deni, whom I married when she was fifteen after my first wife died in childbirth, leaned over and kissed my wet cheek. “Meyer, I finally understand your life’s mission and want you to forgive me for ever being angry with you as you left me and the children to assist others escape the darkness. You knew what would be their lot if they remained in the land of their ancestors.”
I leaned toward my still young wife and, in the flickering light of the movie, gave her a tender kiss, acknowledging all she’d been through these thirty-five years. She tried to muffle her sobs, but all I could do was move the tears from her face with my thumbs. I kissed her again, but this time my thoughts were not on her or the atrocities on the screen, but on the idea that it could be my body being plowed under, my sons and daughter, it could be Deni. I was in the theater, but I have no recollection of the movie that we’d come to see. Instead, I played out my own movie, my life.
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About the Book
For twenty-year-old Meyer Stein, the word pogrom strikes fear into his heart. At the age of five, he witnessed one firsthand, bringing on destruction wrought by peasants, Cossacks, and the army. Hearing the word again as an adult, Meyer feels trapped. His whole world has centered on his small, isolated Russian village, where he and his wife, Rachel, are comfortable. But that is about to change.
Meyer knows he must leave or suffer the same atrocities of others before him. He worries how his pregnant wife will cope, and he wonders how he will handle the harrowing journey with his rascal of a younger brother, Ephraim. As the two leave Russia in 1903, they experience perils both from nature and people bent on betraying them for a reward.
A work of historical fiction, The Journeys of Brothers reflects a composite of the experiences of many Jewish immigrants from Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. It describes pioneering in Saskatchewan, spying for the British in World War I, and assisting Jews to flee the problems of Eastern Europe. A story of the personal courage and sacrifice of European immigrants, it narrates an engrossing saga of immigration and personal development.
About the Author
Murray A. Tucker, the grandson of Russian Jewish immigrants to Canada, is a retired research economist. He is also the author of Screamer: The Forgotten Voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tucker and his wife, JoAnne, live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Visit him online at www.murraytuckerwriter.com.