| Summary: |
"Based on a true story, this is a powerful novel about a Jewish family who were victims of Nazi genocide in Latvia, one of the Baltic states. It is based on the little known, horrific Rumbula Massacre when 30,000 Jews were slaughtered in two days in 1941. In 1941, Miriam, the matriarch of the family, is the sole survivor of this horrendous massacre. She has had to make a 'Sophie's Choice' - and abandon her children to the care of a Gentile friend who hides them. She and her parents are rounded up and made to live in the Jewish Ghetto in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Miriam, along with thousands of other Jews, is forced marched to the execution pits. Incredibly, she manages to escape the carnage when night falls. Through a series of dramatic events, she finds sanctuary in the countryside - and manages to hide for three years to survive the war. Consumed by guilt, she is reunited finally with her daughter - but has lost her son. Thirty-five years later, living in Chicago with her family, Miriam's grand-daughter Sarah tries desperately to ferret out Miriam's family secret to find out what happened. Miriam does not want to revisit the past. But Sarah persists and eventually finds out enough to impel her to travel to Riga, then under Soviet control and at the height of the Cold War, to try to find her uncle, Miriam's lost son. But her search for the truth may threaten her freedom, when she comes face to face with the KGB. Told in alternating chapters between 1941 and 1976, this gripping novel delves into the trauma that survivors of genocide face down through the generations."-- |
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