By Deborah Swift
Last Train to Freedom tells the story of a few of the refugees who travelled on the long train journey across Siberia to the possibility of a new future.
‘The trains were always moving, even during the harshest winter nights. We didn’t know where we were going, only that we were going away from death.’ – Miriam Kagan, a Jewish refugee from Vilnius.
Constructed between 1891 and 1916, the Trans-Siberian Railway was originally designed to consolidate Tsarist power across Russia’s expansive territories. By the time World War II began, and under Stalin, it was vital infrastructure for moving troops, supplies, and, unexpectedly, refugees.
Chiune Sugihara and family with two German soldiers on the steps of Japanisches Generalkonsulat, the Japanese consulate in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Germany, 1941
Originally black and white photograph colorized Julius Jääskeläinen.
Visas for Life
Among the most extraordinary stories linked to the Trans-Siberian escape route was that of Jewish refugees aided by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Lithuania. Disobeying orders from Tokyo, Sugihara issued thousands of transit visas to Jews desperate to escape Europe. These ‘Sugihara visas’ allowed them to cross the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian Railway and reach Japan.
‘Even as I was writing them, I knew I was disobeying my government,’ Sugihara explained. ‘But if I hadn’t, I would have disobeyed God.’ His courageous act allowed an estimated six thousand Jews to take the Trans-Siberian route to safety.
Life Aboard
Conditions aboard the wartime Trans-Siberian were gruelling. Refugees faced bitter cold, minimal food, and constant uncertainty. Soviet guards monitored movements, and sudden stops for security checks were routine.
Historian Laurence Rees described it as ‘a paradoxical purgatory—those on board weren’t free, but they were moving, and movement meant survival.’ Many had fled ghettos or pogroms, and even these harsh conditions seemed bearable by comparison.
The Jewish town of Birobidzhan
On the way, the refugees passed through the Russian state-controlled Jewish settlement of Birobidzhan. For those fleeing the Nazi occupation in 1940–41, Birobidzhan was occasionally a stopover on the longer Trans-Siberian journey to Japan or China. Though few stayed permanently, some refugees stopped off there while awaiting further transit. It seems to have been a depressing place – Soviet purges in the late 1930s had already decimated Jewish intellectual life. Many original settlers had been arrested, executed, or sent to gulags under charges of “counter-revolutionary activity”. For refugees who had lost family, homes, and identity, this sparse and disintegrating Jewish presence was poignant.
End of the Line
The railway’s final stop was Vladivostok. From there, Jewish refugees with valid visas could board ships to Kobe, Japan. Later, many were relocated to Shanghai, one of the few cities that accepted Jews without a visa. Some Polish military refugees, meanwhile, made their way to Iran and eventually joined Polish Free Forces under British command.
Organizations such as Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum have documented many of these personal stories, ensuring that history does not fade. In a 2019 interview, survivor Sarah Buzinsky said: “When people ask me how I survived the war, I say: Sugihara, the Soviets—and the train. That train was the miracle.“
(Testimonies – the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive & Polish Cultural Institute Archive.)
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?
‘Taut, compelling and beautifully written – I loved it!’ ~ DAISY WOOD
‘Tense and thought-provoking’ ~ CATHERINE LAW
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 – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authordeborahswift/ – Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deborahswift1/ – Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/deborahswift.bsky.social – Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/deborah-swift – Amazon Author Page: http://author.to/DeborahSwift – Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deborahswiftauthor/
@swiftstory @cathiedunn @deborahswiftauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub #WW2 #TransSiberian #Russia #Japan #WomensFiction #Spies #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub
Thank you so much for hosting Deborah Swift today, with such an interesting guest post linked to her fabulous new novel, Last Train to Freedom.
Take care,
Cathie x
The Coffee Pot Book Club
Very happy to host Deborah – I’m a big fan of her writing.