Baruch “Bobby” Cohen was born in Romania in 1927. He attended a vocational school when the German army’s invasion of Romania turned the country into the main garage for the Reich’s military vehicles. Baruch and his schoolmates were forced into hard labor, starvation, and little sleep. After the end of WW2, Cohen was engaged in Zionist activities in Romania. He joined a Zionist movement and helped found branches and community centers for Zionist seminars and the purchase of weapons for the future Jewish state. In 1947 he boarded “The Jewish State” ship to immigrate illegally to Israel, which was then under British Mandate control. Instead of being permitted entry, Cohen and the other passengers were expelled to Cyprus, where the British had built detention camps for the Jewish deportees. In 1948, after the British Mandate expired and the Cyprus camps were liberated, Cohen and his fellow prisoners sailed to Israel.

Cohen worked in the State Comptroller’s Office as deputy director of inspection of Israel’s security forces, until his retirement. For his activities in helping Romanian Jews between 1945-1947, Baruch Cohen was awarded the Decoration of State Warriors by the Israel Ministry of Defense.

The Berlin Family’s Secret is Cohen’s second book. His first, The Decade of Tears, tells the story of three young Jews before and after the establishment of the State of Israel in the decade following World War II.