We were family:The Liberman Exodus

This is a true narrative of one family’s exodus. Based on historical events from 1905 to 1960, Christine Chatterton has crafted an intimate account of a Jewish family known as the Libermans, as they escaped from an uprising and a pogrom in Odessa to live in Harbin in Manchuria. Two brothers with their wives and children went ‘Beyond the Pale’ and traveled the Trans-Siberian railroad to reach freedom in Manchuria. In the years that followed, they stood against Russians, Manchurian Warlords, Chinese, and Japanese during the changing political intrigues of the period between the First and the Second World War. Later, the five Liberman children, as adults, had to escape as the Japanese invaded Manchuria, China, and Hong Kong, making their own ways separately to reach safety in America or in Israel. They all faced the dangers and the Anti-Semitism of the times in uniquely different ways that revealed the difficult decisions they had to make and the courage that showed through their characters. Along the way, they found the true meaning of family. This is an epic exodus of courage, hardship, war, death, illness, and ultimately — survival.