Authors: Ronald H. Balson
Karolina's Twins (44 page)
I based my character Lena Scheinman on Fay. In my novel, Lena engages Liam Taggart as her investigator and his wife, Catherine Lockhart, as her attorney to help her fulfill her sacred promise to her best friend, Karolina, to go back to Poland and find Karolina's twin babies lost and abandoned during the Holocaust. The novel traces the lives of Lena and Karolina from their childhood in Chrzanów, Poland, through the Nazi occupation, the forced labor camps, the concentration camps, and eventually to the escape from the Auschwitz death march.
My fictional account is based on these true events, with Fay's permission. I am grateful to her for seeking me out, sharing her story, and entrusting me to bring it to you.
I did my best to be faithful to the facts, and my research was extensive. I traveled back to Chrzanów and walked in her footsteps, to her house, to the market square, and to the Chrzanów ghetto where she lived while she was forced to work sewing German uniforms at the Shop. I located her high school in Krakow. I went to Auschwitz and to the brick barracks, known as Sector B1, where Fay slept in the lower concrete bunk. I studied numerous historical accounts of Chrzanów and the camps where she was sent. I did additional research through the Holocaust museums in Washington and Skokie, and in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Though it is a novel, a fictional account, it mirrors Fay's life, including the heartwarming story of how she met her husband after her liberation.
I hope Lena's story has touched you as deeply as Fay's touched me that first afternoon.
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âRon Balson
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ALSO BY
R
ONALD
H. B
ALSON
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RONALD H. BALSON
is a Chicago trial attorney, an educator, and a writer. Balson was a finalist for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction in 2014 and a finalist for the Premio Bancarella Italian Literature Award in 2014. He was an honoree at the Chicago Public Library Foundation's Carl Sandburg Literary Award Dinner. He is the author of
Saving Sophie
and the international bestseller
Once We Were Brothers
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C
ONTENTS
A Reading Gold Group Selection
A Conversation with Ronald H. Balson
How the Story of Karolina's Twins Found Me
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
KAROLINA'S TWINS
. Copyright © 2016 by Ronald H. Balson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photographs: background © Mark Owen/Arcangel Images; children © Elisabeth Ansley/Arcangel Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-09837-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-08905-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 978125008905-2
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at
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First Edition: September 2016
