Description
Author: Linda Margolin Royal
Format: Trade Paperback C Format
Publication date: 30/01/2024
Imprint: AFFIRM PRESS
ISBN: 9781922930392
In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and secretly issues thousands of visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity.
Three decades later, in Australia, Rachel Margol, her father and her grandmother live disconnected from one another and haunted by unspoken tragedies. When Rachel announces her engagement to a Greek Orthodox man, it detonates a long-held secret. The Margols are actually the Margolins: they are Jewish, and her family has concealed their identity from her and the world. But why? As Rachel struggles to understand this deception, an opportunity arrives to visit Chiune Sugihara, the man who risked his life to save them during World War II. Rachel becomes determined to meet him, but will a journey to Japan, and the secrets it uncovers, heal the Margolins or fracture them for good?
An extraordinary novel inspired by the true story of Chiune Sugihara, and the thousands of people – including the author – who owe him their lives.
Sue Reid, Read by Reid –
Linda Margolin Royal writes the fictionalised account of her family’s personal story. She would not be alive today but for the defiance of ‘The Japanese Schindler’, Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara in 1940. From Poland to Lithuania to the outpost of safety in Kobe, Japan then Australia. ‘A Star On The Grave’ is set in 1968 and it is time for granddaughter Rachel to understand the dark, hidden secrets of her lineage and the brutal remains of trauma that still haunt their family.
By reading these extraordinary novels, we learn – I learnt about the power of one man to grant freedom to thousands of Jews in desperate times. It was heartening to read of one good man using power well in stark contrast to a time when the totalitarian fist broke so many lives and nations.
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