Winter Journey - Diane Armstrong

Winter Journey - Diane Armstrong (2005)
After reading a couple of so so books, I came across this little lovely. I think I found it by looking at our fab libraries website for Sarahs Key, another recent read. I followed the links to Jewish second world war novels. I had heard of the author before. I knew she was Australian (although Polish by birth), and had written a book called The Voyage of their Life, a non-fiction book about the sea voyage of many Jewish refugees made to Australia and New Zealand. The link is here:
http://www.dianearmstrong.com/voyage.htm

Anyways this story is a novel about a forensic dentist Halina Shore, who travels to a rural town in Poland. She is asked to help identify the victims in a mass grave, who were the Jewish families of the town, who were rounded up in a barn and burnt alive. She not only manages to help with the controversy that surrounds the tragedy, as it seems the Nazis may not be to blame, but Polish villagers themselves. She also finds bits about her own past, that she was unawares of as she had been bought to Australia as a girl, with only her mother.

It was a compelling read, I enjoyed it and didn't mind when a loud neighbours party kept me up til one reading. How compelling these stories are, the horrible bitter reality of what people can do to each other. I always wonder if we would let it happen today, but maybe we do in places like Dafur and Iraq.

Anyways, if you need a good read, I am going to give it a 4/5 and I am going back to the library website to reserve her next book Nocturne.