Daughters of the Occupation: A Novel of WWII

A heartbreaking story of the occupation of Latvia first by the Soviets, then by the German Nazi's. How the Jewish people were treated horribly by both regimes. The mass murders the concentration camps and the ghettos. Much is written about Poland and Germany but this is the first book I have read about the genocide in Latvia. To tell you the truth I never knew this country existed before reading this book. Although it is a book of historical fiction, the events written about actually happened. This is a dual timeline story telling the story of Miriam a young Jewish woman in Latvia under first Soviet, then German occupation. It was not a good time to be Jewish, but Miriam was on her way to the hospital for the birth of her second child a son, Monya. They already have a daughter Ilana. It is also the story of Sarah the daughter of Ilana and granddaughter of Miriam. How she struggles with the loss of her mother and reconnects with her grandmother at her mother's funeral. Alternating back and forth the story is told of Miriam's time in Latvia under both occupations. The cruel treatment of the Jewish under both regimes. It tells how one woman must give up her children to keep them safe and her quest to find them after she miraculously survives sudden death at the hands of the Nazi's. How one child is lost to her and she never forgets him. It goes then to the story of Sarah, reconnecting with her Grandmother after her mother's death and how she goes on a dangerous quest to the Soviet Union to find Monya for her Grandmother and may not make it out alive. The story is interesting, historical, very very sad and heartbreaking and sometimes hard to read. It was interesting to me to know that the facts of this genocide of the Jewish in Latvia is not well known and as far as I know not well published at all. A part of history lost forever and forgotten but should never be. It should never have happened and it must never happen again. Thanks to Shelly Sanders for writing a story bringing this part of history alive, to Harper Perennial and paperbacks for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available to me.