This land will nurture and protect us, and we will repay it with our love, for we are free here.

Free of all that haunts us.'

In a time when desperate people seized with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than seventy nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity.

They came from all over war-torn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. One of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th Century, the Snowy Scheme was being built with pride from the sweat and blood of displaced people.

One was 'Lucky', a German Jew seeking refuge in Australia after losing his family to the Nazis. Another was Pietro, a young Italian immigrant with no memory of his past, in search of more than a new life. And then there was the woman from Israel, whose past was so steeped in horror that, no matter how far she ran, she could never escape the nightmare of Auschwitz or the massacre of Deir Yassin. People of all races and creeds tunnelled through a mountain range to turn the course of a majestic river, trying to put to rest ghosts from the inferno of history: buried memories, unimaginable pain and deadly secrets.

From the ruins of Berlin to the birth of Israel, from the Italian Alps to the Australian high country, Heritage is a passionate and fast-paced tale of rebirth, struggle, sacrifice and redemption, and a tribute

to those who gave meaning to the Australian spirit.