Death Had Two Sons by Yael Dayan

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A father is forced to choose between two sons, a decision that haunts the family decades later

Haim Kalinsky lies in an Israeli hospital, terminal lung cancer about to cut his life short. Across the street stands his son Daniel, unable to visit his dying father because of an excruciating decision Haim made during the Second World War.

When the Nazis marched into Warsaw, Haim awaited the inevitable. After his wife was deported, the German soldiers returned, sending Haim and his two sons, Daniel and Shmuel, to one of the extermination camps. It was there that Haim was confronted with the unanswerable question by one of the camp guards as they disembarked from the trains: Which son will you choose to live? With only a moment to decide, Haim instinctively pulled Shmuel to him, condemning Daniel to die.

Decades later, it is Daniel who has survived the brutality of the camps and Shmuel who has perished. Strangers to each other, Daniel faces tremendous internal conflict as he struggles to reconnect with his father in his dying days. In this haunting and powerful tale of a broken father-son relationship, we come to identify with Daniel’s long and tortuous journey back to his father.