Journeys of Hope

Meyer and Sonia, emigrants to London in the 1920s, exchanged anguished letters, as he struggled to persuade her to join him and to make practical arrangements. Recently discovered, this unique insight into universal challenges, chime with current affairs and prompt a journey of discovery. Meyer and Sonia were also the children of immigrants. Their parents and grandparents had left the Jewish Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire to flee to safety in South Africa. Meyer's father, Nathan, had first emigrated to Memphis, Tennessee and spent a period of time in Leeds, UK. Concurrently with Meyer's and Sonia's separation, Nathan's eldest daughter, Annie, was in the process of re-emigrating to Memphis, undergoing an enforced separation from her husband, and a period of incarceration in Ellis Island, USA. Sonia herself had been a refugee from the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution. Her father had been able to reach South Africa just before the outbreak of World War One, but Sonia's mother and four children were left behind for another nine years. While investigating the background to their stories, the author travelled through eastern Europe. Few traces now remain of this important period of history, overlaid instead by more immediate, recent conflicts. The parallel universe of those who were left behind are uncovered.