Book Title: Last Train to Freedom
Series: n/a
Author: Deborah Swift
Publication Date: 8th May 2025
Publisher: HQDigital
Pages: 361
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers: WW2, so mild violence
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Book Title and Author Name:
Last Train to Freedom
by Deborah Swift
Blurb:
‘Taut, compelling and beautifully written – I loved it!’ ~ DAISY WOOD
‘Tense and thought-provoking’ ~ CATHERINE LAW
1940. As Soviet forces storm Lithuania, Zofia and her brother Jacek must flee to survive.
A lifeline appears when Japanese consul Sugihara offers them visas on one condition: they must deliver a parcel to Tokyo. Inside lies intelligence on Nazi atrocities, evidence so explosive that Nazi and Soviet agents will stop at nothing to possess it.
Pursued across Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express, Zofia faces danger at every turn, racing to expose the truth as Japan edges closer to allying with the Nazis. With the fate of countless lives hanging in the balance, can she complete her mission before time runs out?
‘Such an interesting and original book…. Informative, full of suspense and thrills.’
~ Netgalley Review
For When Angels Fly:
The Power of the Pen
by Deborah Swift
Or in this case, the power of the brush.
Chiune Sugihara was the unknown Japanese WW2 hero who saved thousands of refugees with his writing brush.
He was a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania during World War 2, and his courageous efforts to issue transit visas against all his superiors’ orders became one of the most underrated life-saving decisions of the war.
In the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara was serving as the Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania. Hitler had already invaded much of Europe, and the Soviet Union had recently annexed the Baltic States, including Lithuania. Because of this, the Jewish population in Kaunas was growing increasingly desperate. Many were refugees from Nazi-occupied Poland who had fled to Lithuania, only to find themselves trapped again between two brutal regimes: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Jewish refugees began gathering outside the Japanese consulate, begging for transit visas. The plan was to escape via the Trans-Siberian Railway through the Soviet Union, then Japan, and hopefully onward to other safe havens like the Americas or Palestine. But to do this, they needed a transit visa from Japan.
His government wouldn’t help
Sugihara cabled Tokyo three times to request permission to issue these visas. Each time, the response was the same: permission denied. This was because Japan did not want to antagonize Germany, its Axis partner.
Sugihara knew the rules. But he also saw the faces of the refugees in the long straggling queue outside the embassy.
Parents clutched their children. Elderly men wept in the courtyard. Students, some as young as 13 or 14, pleaded for their futures. It was no longer a matter of diplomacy. It was a matter of conscience.
Sugihara made a life-altering decision: he would issue the visas anyway. He knew this could cost him his career. But as he later said, “They were human beings, and they needed help. I’m not the kind of person who can ignore such a situation.”
On the morning of July 31, 1940, Sugihara sat down at his desk and began writing visas by hand. And he did not stop.
Six thousand lives saved
From early morning until late at night, often 18 to 20 hours a day, he wrote visas. His wife Yukiko assisted him, bringing him food, and helping organize the crowds gathered outside the consulate. Sugihara would write up to 300 visas a day—each one taking several minutes—while his wife would press them with the consulate’s official seal.
Between July 31 and September 4, 1940, when he was forced to leave Lithuania, Sugihara issued thousands of transit visas. Estimates vary, but it’s believed he issued more than 2,100 visas, many of them for families, ultimately saving over 6,000 lives.
The refugees who received Sugihara’s visas made the arduous journey across Siberia by train, then boarded ships from Vladivostok to reach Japan. From there, many dispersed to countries across the globe—settling in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Palestine.
For many, Sugihara’s transit visa was not only a document but a lifeline. The people he saved went on to rebuild lives, families, and communities. Today, their descendants number in the tens of thousands.
Last Train to Freedom tells the story of some of those refugees.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: http://mybook.to/TransSiberian
Author Bio:
Deborah Swift is the English author of twenty historical novels, including Millennium Award winner Past Encounters, and The Poison Keeper the novel based around the life of the legendary poisoner Giulia Tofana. The Poison Keeper won the Wishing Shelf Readers Award for Book of the Decade. Recently she has completed a secret agent series set in WW2, the first in the series being The Silk Code.
Deborah used to work as a set and costume designer for theatre and TV and enjoys the research aspect of creating historical fiction, something she loved doing as a scenographer. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against a background of real historical events. Deborah lives in England on the edge of the Lake District, an area made famous by the Romantic Poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Author Links:
Website: www.deborahswift.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/swiftstory
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Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/deborah-swift
Amazon Author Page: http://author.to/DeborahSwift
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deborahswiftauthor/
When Angels Fly 