Linda Margolin Royal on a story inspired by the Japanese Schindler, 'The Star on the Grave'

Good Reading Podcast

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his government and secretly issues visas to fleeing Jewish refugees. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity. Three decades later, in Australia, Rachel Margol is shocked when her engagement reveals a long-held family secret: she is Jewish. As she grapples with this deception and the dysfunction it has caused, unspoken tragedies from the past begin to come to light. When an opportunity arrives to visit Chiune Sugihara, the man who risked his life to save the Margols during World War II, Rachel becomes determined to meet him. But will a journey to Japan, and the secrets it uncovers, heal the family or fracture them for good? In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Linda Margolin Royal about the origins of this story in her own family history, the plight of Jewish refugees in Lithuania in 1940, and the remarkable Japanese diplomat who risked his own life to save others.