"Is it possible to atone for the mistakes we make when we are young?" is the question central to the incidents in this book. Sometimes, if we are fortunate, what we thought of as mistakes, return later in life, not to haunt us, but to offer us the redemption we seek.
It has been a challenge to put this story to paper, not least because it has involved a lifelong search for meaning gathered from conflicting oral histories, text-book accounts of a century of turmoil, and archival sources, many of them both contradictory and puzzling. A family history is rarely a continuous narrative. Rather, it is a series of disparate memories featuring characters and events that have shaped our lives, often separated by vast stretches of time and space, seemingly unconnected. Yet often they surprise us when viewed in retrospect, with a story that can offer us the peace of mind we seek.