Newsletter - June 2023

Seven Oaks Book Club

The Seven Oaks Book Club meets each month to discuss books on a reading list which is selected by mutual consent of the Book Club members. All members of SOCC are invited to attend. Our selection for June… Surviving Hiroshima by Anthony Drago & Douglas Wellman

On August 6, 1945, 22-year-old Kaleria Palchikoff was doing pre-breakfast chores when a blinding flash lit the sky over Hiro - shima, Japan. A moment later, everything went black as the house collapsed on her and her family. Their world, and everyone else's, changed as the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city. From Russian nobility, the Palchikoff's barely escaped death at the hands of Bolshevik revolu - tionaries until her father, a White Russian officer, hijacked a ship to take them to safety in Hiroshima. Safety was short lived. Her father, a talented musician,

established a new life for the family, but the outbreak of World War II created a cloud of suspicion that led to his imprisonment and years of deprivation for his family. After the bombing, trapped in the center of previously unimagined devastation, Kaleria summoned her strength to come to the aid of bomb victims, treating the never- before seen effects of radiation. Fluent in English, Kaleria was soon recruited to work with Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s occupation forces in a number of secretarial positions until the family found a new life in the United States. Heavily based on quotes from Kaleria's memoirs written immediately after World War II, and transcripts of United States Army Air Force interviews with her. Our next meeting is Wednesday, May 24th at 11:30am Please email Cynthia Bailey at cbailey664@gmail.com to receive information on joining the meeting.

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