DAUGHTERS OF THE OCCUPATION

A Jewish family torn apart by Nazi and Soviet persecution struggles to reconnect in this historical novel.

Sanders’ tale braids together two different timelines. One, set in the mid-1970s, follows Sarah Byrne, a 24-year-old market researcher in Chicago who wants to find out more information about her mother Ilana’s mysterious past after her sudden death. To that end, Sarah approaches her maternal grandmother, Miriam—a prickly, suspicious elderly woman who initially refuses to talk to her, but grudgingly relents as Sarah plies her with home-cooked meals. Intertwining chapters follow the ordeal of Miriam and her Jewish family—husband Max, a prosperous dentist; young Ilana; and toddler son, Monya—in the Latvian capital of Riga during World War II. When the Soviets invade Latvia in 1940, the family’s house, money, and belongings are confiscated; things worsen a year later, when the Germans conquer the country. After a horrific tragedy, Miriam makes the wrenching decision to give Ilana and Monya away to her Lutheran maid, Gutte, who will conceal their Jewish identities and raise them as gentiles. Miriam endures intense horrors during the Holocaust, surviving due to her own grit, luck, and the occasional kindness of strangers. In the ’70s timeline, Sarah travels to the Soviet republic of Latvia to try to track down a family member; she has an unlikely romance but also experiences totalitarian terror herself when the KGB targets her. Sanders’ novel vividly recreates the nerve-wracking fear and carnage of wartime Riga, as well as the city’s feeling of grim paranoia during the late Soviet period. Her evocative prose reveals nuances of character in mundane domestic details (“Her grandmother dug through the meat loaf with her fork as if she were looking for buried treasure, or poison”) and bears witness to atrocities in a manner that’s all the more moving for its restraint and realism, as in a passage set just before a synagogue is burned: “The rabbi…began chanting the Shema in Hebrew, traditional last words for Jews, in a loud, unwavering voice. He walked into the synagogue. The doors clanged shut behind him.” The result is a searching exploration of how much is lost during tragedies, even by those who live on.

A gripping historical saga that skillfully addresses the trauma of the Holocaust.