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′This gate here, I recognise it. Behind it is a steep slope, a hill, fields, grass. We would slide down it in winter.′
At last, an incontrovertible test through which my father′s memory might be vindicated. Two lone gates that appear to lead nowhere.
′Push,′ we scream, ′lift the latch and push.′
′No. I remember too much now. No.′
A love story and a detective story, a study of history and of memory, this spellbinding new work explores a son′s confrontation with the terror of his parents′ childhood.
Moving from Poland and Germany to Jerusalem and Melbourne, Mark Raphael Baker travels across the silence of fifty years, through the gates of Auschwitz, and into a dark bunker where a little girl hides in fear. As he returns to scenes of his parents′ captivity, he struggles to unveil the mystery of their survival.
The Fiftieth Gate is a journey from despair and death towards hope and life; the story of a son who enters his parents′ memories and, inside the darkness, finds light.
∗ Winner, NSW Premier′s Literary Award 1997
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