Most stories that are written about the Second World War tend to focus on one of two things - the Holocaust, and the Western soldiers. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it does tend to skew our knowledge and narrow our view of what happened to millions of other people besides those two groups.
This story is one example of how to redress the balance.
Fifteeen year old Lina, her mother, and young brother, live in Lithuania. One night, almost without warning, their house is stormed by Soviet guards, and they are taken to a train bound for Sibera. Their crime? Their father is a university professor. This is the Second World War, and Stalin is invading Eastern Europe and doing away with anyone who poses a threat to his brand of communist ideology.
The family is taken thousands of miles from home, deep into Sibera, where they end up at a prison camp, again, not dissimilar to Nazi concentration camps. Not as much attention has been paid in secondary schools to Stalin's crimes against humanity, particularly when compared to the Nazis, and yet Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions more.
The hero of this story, in my opinion, is Lina's mother, Elena. Although she is not naive as to the reality of her situation, she sees her job as being optimistic and rallying for her children and the people around her. When they arrive in their first prison camp, Elena becomes almost a focal point and creates a community, even in the brutal conditions they live in. Although they are far from free, Elena encourages the people around them to make the best of their situation, always hopeful that the war will soon be over and they can be free again.
The saddest part of this story was at the end, finding out that the people of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia were essentially forbidden, even after they were freed from the camps, to speak about what really happened to them. Their history became hidden until long after the end of the Soviet Empire. This book powerfully reminds us of the job literature can do, to inform and challenge as well as entertain. Just like previous books I've review, these amazingly courageous nations deserve to have the truth of their histories told and preserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment