In this nov­el about the Holo­caust, author Hen­ry Rozy­c­ki tells the sto­ry of two broth­ers who have very dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences dur­ing the war years, and he does so in a humane, dig­ni­fied style that brings their hard­ships to life.

Daniel and Ian are ready to start life on their own. In 1939, as the war is approach­ing, Daniel moves to an apart­ment in War­saw and works at an archi­tec­ture firm. Ian stops for a vis­it while en route to France to start school. The world is chang­ing fast, and each broth­er gets caught up in the war in his own way.

Daniel joins the Pol­ish army in the hope of using the uni­form to trav­el around Poland. His plans are thwart­ed when he is cap­tured and sent to the Siber­ian Gulag. There, the threat of star­va­tion, freez­ing from the bit­ter cold, and cru­el pun­ish­ments from guards are a dai­ly occur­rence. Daniel is able to get slight­ly bet­ter treat­ment when he proves him­self use­ful in rebuild­ing a col­lapsed mine. He meets a woman who helps him through the Siber­ian winters.

Ian gets to Nan­cy, France and is just start­ing school when Hitler invades Poland. He is cut off from his fam­i­ly and won’t know what is hap­pen­ing to his broth­er for many years. Ian trav­els to Paris and meets up with some child­hood friends. He moves in with them, and they try to work through the under­ground to stay alive and keep food on the table. He, too, finds love, but they have to sep­a­rate in order to sur­vive. Ian is on the move, try­ing to avoid get­ting sent to a con­cen­tra­tion camp. He trav­els across France through Casablan­ca, then boards a ship to England.

This sto­ry is told from the per­spec­tive of Ian’s son, Hen­ry, many years lat­er. He is trav­el­ing to France from New York City, where the broth­ers recon­nect­ed after the war and set­tled down togeth­er. Now Hen­ry has come to see where his father was dur­ing the war. Trav­el­ing across Europe, he takes a detour to Nan­cy. Hen­ry won­ders how he would have respond­ed in his father’s sit­u­a­tion. How did his father sur­vive? Was he scared? How did he make the choic­es he did?

Walk the Earth as Broth­ers is full of real­is­tic exam­ples of what hap­pened to peo­ple dur­ing World War II. It shows how betray­al and decep­tion can change the course of someone’s life, but also how brav­ery, love, and ran­dom acts of kind­ness can help them survive.