The Power of Music

Description

By middle age you believe you know what life is all about; then suddenly all that changes and you learn that your life is a lie.

Coming back to the family home to settle up after her father’s death Ruth Taylor opens a door to her mother’s music room, a door that had been locked when she was eleven years old when her mother died 30 years ago. Why her father had locked the door was a mystery and now she was about to find out the reason.

There in boxes, among reports about her mother’s music students, Ruth discovers that her mother was identified by two names. Names that were unknown to her, and names that change her understanding of who she might be. Katrina Weinstein or Karla Weiss were on documents that allowed her mother to enter America. But those names were Jewish and she had never known that her mother was a Jew. They had never practised any religion, Christian or otherwise; her father had never told her anything about her mother or his duties in the war and now she had suddenly knew she had no knowledge of who her mother was.

Here in this town of her childhood she had a good school friend and Ruth needed a shoulder to cry on. This is how Ruth Taylor becomes involved with the Incredible Smalls. Her school friend Dorothy Small realizes that Ruth has to learn the truth no matter how terrible it might be. With the help of her daughters Georgina and Meghan they journey back into the history of Second World War and follow two women into the horrors of Auschwitz. Through the skill of Georgina and Meghan they trace the path that leads Ruth to understanding why her mother’s gift in music was her mother life, but it takes all the skills of the sixteen year old girls to discover Ruth’s mother identity.