Daughters of the Occupation

Based on a true story, this powerful novel is about a Jewish family who falls victim to the Soviet and Nazi occupations pf the Baltic state of Latvia. Living in Riga, Latvia's capital, the family is decimated in the horrific Rumbula massacre, in which 30,000 Jews are slaughtered over two days in 1941.

Miriam, the matriarch of the family, has to make the unthinkable choice to leave her children in the care of a Gentile friend who hides them. Then Miriam and her parents are rounded up and forced to live in Riga's Jewish ghetto. A few weeks later, Miriam, along with thousands of other Jews, is marched to the execution pits in the Rumbula forest. Incredibly, she is able to escape the carnage. 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 guild, she is finally reunited with her daughter but has lost her son.

Thirty-five years later, Miriam lives in Chicago with her family. Her granddaughter, Sarah, who wants to understand her maternal family history, tries desperately to ferret out Miriam's secret. But Miriam does not wish to revisit the past. Sarah persists and eventually learns enough to impel her to travel to Riga, then under Soviet control and at the height of the Cold War, to search for her uncle, Miriam's lost son. But her quest for the truth may threaten her freedom when she come face-to-face with the KGB.

Alternating between 1941 and 1967, this gripping novel delves into the trauma that survivors of genocide face through the generations.