Jonah's Promise

De: Iris Krumbiegel

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

“Promise me that you will do what I told you. Take good care of your brother.”
An elderly man is found lying unresponsive on the street and rushed to the hospital with obvious trauma to the head. No one knows who he is or what happened to him. A hand-written diary is his only possession. In the ICU, he comes under the care of sympathetic night-shift nurse Marie, who, having grown up in an orphanage, feels a kinship with the nameless comatose patient. Attempts to locate the man’s family persuade Marie to find out more about her own fragmented past, and, with any luck, put an end to her recurring nightmare and the haunting cry that jolts her awake.
Hoping to rouse the old man out of his coma, Marie begins reading the diary to him during the quiet nighttime hours and is taken aback by the dramatic, disturbing tale it tells. Amidst the chaos of a Nazi raid, fourteen-year-old Jonah promises his mother that he’ll always look after his little brother, not yet knowing that in mere hours he and Eli will narrowly avoid the train headed for Auschwitz with their parents on it. The Jewish brothers quickly realize they are now on their own and on the run. Though they manage to find some cover along the way, they are eventually captured and taken to a concentration camp, and forced into slave labor and medical experimentation. Despite all odds, Jonah is determined to keep Eli safe, a task proving more difficult than he'd ever imagined. The impending arrival of the Allied forces leaves the Nazi officials busy scrambling to hide their crimes, but allows Jonah an opportunity to ensure Eli’s safe escape. Unfortunately, his own appears unattainable. He can only hope they see each other again someday and that he will have fulfilled the most important promise he’s ever made in his young life.