Testament to Compassion and Empathy

Burial of Hearts by Shania Sarup is a tale of triumph of compassion over hatred in the shadows of the Holocaust. A work of historical fiction, it is inspired by the true story of Sir Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, the Raja of Nawanagar, who offered refuge to several Jewish children who fled their homes as the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews during World War II years. The novel shifts alternately between the point of view of Silana Haydn, a half-Jew girl from an affluent family in Poland and Tara, the daughter of Maharaja of Bramsadha, India. Silana, who’s just turned fifteen years old, finds her life upturned when the secret police arrive at her doorstep. She and her two siblings are forced to leave behind their mother and motherland and embark upon a long, arduous journey to a refugee camp far away in colonial India.