Tombstone Histories is a venture into the strange past of a great Chinese city.


Harbin, established in northeastern China in 1898 by Russians and others, was for a time home to some 38 different national communities, before war and revolution destroyed their lives. Harbin also became a safe house and waystation for Jews escaping pogroms and hatred in Europe, and Tombstone Histories presents the Jewish experience in the city in a personal and unforgettable way. It paints a revealing picture, never shown before, of Jewish daily life in this faraway and alien land, of how people functioned, struggled and sometimes thrived in a space that was so different and unfamiliar. Tombstone Histories offers glimpses of the lives of the rich, the poor and those in between with daily stories and reminiscences of close to sixty families.


History so often ends up as just a series of tombstones, but this book provides the other side to the story-the personal details of lives which allow readers to draw their own conclusions about the human experience, especially survival.