QBVII by Leon Uris

Synopsis of the book QBVII by Leon Uris. Copyright 1970



The work covers the period of about 1939 to 1967. It is about the lives of and the interaction between the main characters – Adam Kelno, a Pole and Abraham Cady anAmerican Jew and the terrible, brutal, merciless conditions that existed in the Nazi concentration camps. The book begins by describing the life of Kelno, a medical doctor, after the war and how he is accused and judged not guilty of war crimes in the Jadwiga concentration camp where he did surgeries on inmates. After this he takes a position in an English colony , Sarawak, to treat and care for the backward natives. He stays there for about 15 years and does much good in changing the way the natives live to a healthier way of life. The English government takes note of what great things he has accomplished in Sarawak and knights him.
When he returns to London he creates a practice, not for the well to do class but for the lower working class. He becomes a national health care practitioner and is lauded for his work.
In the second part of the book Uris tells the story of Abraham Cady. His brother is a communist and a pilot who is killed in the Spanish war. Abraham (Ben) also becomes a pilot and enlists with the Canadian air force. He flies in the battle of Britain and is almost killed - losing an eye. He writes and becomes well published. His last book, Holocaust is a world wide best seller. When researching for the book, which is about the Jews treatment in the war, he comes across the name of Adam Kelno and his involvement in criminal experimental surgeries at Jadwiga concentration camp and devotes a few paragraphs to it.
Kelno, now Sir Adam Kelno and a respected doctor, feels that he is an upstanding member of the English society and Cady has no right to besmirch his reputation. He brings a suit against the book and wants reparations for the injustice done him. Cady’s publishers and all connected with the book are afraid they will have to recall all copies and pay for damages. Then a world famous violinist comes forward and tells Cady that he had been castrated at Jadwiga by Kelno .
With renewed vigor in defending the “Holocaust” Cady and his cohorts come up with more people who were operated on at Jadwiga and will testify.
The trial goes on and the defense eventually shows that what the “Holocaust” said about Kelno was true. The jury rules in favor of Kelno but awards damages of a halfpenny. Indicating, yes, he was defamed but what the book said was true.

QBVII was about two men and their convergence. But it has much broader meaning. At the end Bannister, the defense lawyer, and Cady converse about what an why things happened at Jadwiga and throughout Europe and how inmates responded to their situation. As they opine about how a civilization can be so inhumane to their fellow man, and have we learned anything, and has it happened before, and will it happen again. One can draw the conclusion that it is part of human nature.
“Oh , God is patient enough,” Thomas Bannister said.” You see, we mortals are so pompous that we have deluded ourselves into believing that in all of eternity, and all of the vast universe, that we are the only ones who have undergone the human experience. I’ve always believed that it’s happened before, on this very earth.
…in God’s scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a few hundred million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last for eternity because people will treat each other the way they ought to.”

Cady says “I cannot shake Bannister's notion that there have been civilizations before us. And it will happen again. When this one goes, I’m going to be very sorry about London.
Down the street from the law court is St. Clement Danes church. It’s the royal air force church. And I knew it well during the war. In fact I wrote some columns about it.
St. Clement Danes is exactly what Thomas Bannister was talking about. It was built by the Danes in 871 or thereabouts when king Alfred expelled them beyond the city wall and the it was destroyed. It was rebuilt by William the Conqueror and destroyed, and rebuilt in the middle ages and destroyed in the fire of 1666, and rebuilt by Christopher Wren , and stood until the German bombers destroyed it in the second world war and it was rebuilt again.”