On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Dachau’s liberation, the author has not only resurrected a moving tale of past friendship but a parable of human compassion that holds enduring lessons for today. Balm in Gilead traces John L. Withers II’s prolonged search for the roots of his father’s story — a search that one day, miraculously, ended with the old friends finding each other again.
ABOUT THE BOOK
As World War II ended, an all-black U.S. Army truck company, including Lieutenant John L. Withers, rushed emergency supplies to an unknown German town. Long victims of harsh racial abuse, the soldiers were shocked nonetheless at the horrors they witnessed when the “town” turned out to be the Dachau concentration camp. Days later, two destitute young Jews, former Dachau inmates, appeared at their encampment and pleaded for help. They hid out in his unit for a year, working alongside his men and forging close friendships. When Withers went home in 1947, the boys — fondly nicknamed Pee Wee and Salomon by the troops — were ready to start life anew. Although they eventually lost touch, Withers’ memory of his friends never faded. What, he wondered, had become of them? Would he ever see them again?

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