City of Secrets

City of Secrets by Stewart O'Nan, 194 pages.
O'Nan's sixteenth (?) novel takes place in post-World War II Jerusalem. Brand, a Latvian Jew who feels that he "accidentally" survived the Holocaust, after having been a prisoner of the Russians, then the Nazis, and then Russians again, has made it to Palestine with an assumed identity. He is working for Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary / resistance force has just put aside its differences with other like-minded groups, such as Irgun, to drive the British out of Palestine and form a Jewish state. But Brand is not sure how he feels about all of this. He is haunted by those he lost in the war, and haunted by the sense that he is not the man he used to think he was. When one of the members of his clandestine cell is betrayed, and Brand finds that standing by, doing nothing to save the man (not quite a friend, but almost) who is accused of the betrayal, is sickeningly reminiscent of his time in the camps.
An affecting, sad novel.