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Fiction
The Brief Sun
Ambrose, Benedict.Bloomington, 1st
Books, n.d. ISBN 075969239
Availability: 1st Books Library, 2595 Vernal Pike Rd., Bloomington,
IN
47404. tel: 1-800-839-8640. website: www.thebriefsun.com
Review: In his beautifully crafted book "The
Brief Sun" Robert Ambros tells the story of 16 year old Andrzej
and his companions in a Northern Siberian labor camp in 1941, and
beyond. Mr. Ambros has the unique gift of describing his characters
fully formed. The reader can almost see them, touch them, and understand
the motives for their actions, as well as get into their minds.
That is the mark of a true story teller!
In spite of the pathos of the era, his matter-of-fact telling of
the story makes it an easy to read book. His descriptions of fear,
cold, hunger, loss, guilt and immense sorrow are offset by tales
of the closest cameraderie, the desolation and the beauty of the
various landscapes Andrzej encounters, and the hunger for, and finding
of first love.
This story, told with passion, is rich in historical detail, and
should become required reading in every history class.
I highly recommend it to anyone, today and in the future!
Reviewed by Ronee Henson
Stefania's Dancing Slippers (Recommended for Primary School Age
Children)
Beck, Jennifer. Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9781869438111 (hbk.), 9781869438258 (pbk.)
Available at: www.timeout.co.nz , http://childrensbookshop.netstep.co.nz , www.booktopia.com.au
Five-year-old Stefania loves to dance in her special pair of dancing
slippers. But then war comes to Poland, her father goes away to
fight, and Stefania and her mother are sent to a work camp in Siberia.
When they are freed, Stefania is parted from her mother and sent
to the other side of the world. At their parting Stefania loses
one of her slippers, but she holds on to the remaining one as a
link to her parents and home.
The Silver Madonna - The Odyssey of Eugenia Wasilewska (Recommended
for the teenage reader)
Wasilewska, Eugenia. John Day Co; [1st
American ed.] edition (1971)
ASIN: B0006CKGT2
Available at: www.amazon.com
The heroic story of a Polish girl who fell into the hands of the
Russians when Poland was divided by Hitler and Stalin in 1939. Exile
to Siberia, a disastrous marriage, escape across the Steppes, recapture,
and a final homecoming.
Recollections of a Journey
Hutchinson, R.C. Allison and Busby,
1994.
The Hand of a Stranger
Lachocki, Gryzelda Niziol. Bloomington,
1st Books Library
ISBN 0-7596-0685-4
Available from the author: Gryzelda Niziol Lachocki, 2014 Pine Tree
Drive Edgewater, FL 32141, USA or
by e-mail: Ab4uz@aol.com
The purge of Eastern Europe's land owners by Stalin, sends millions
of Russians and Poles to the Russian labor camps. With a German
invasion, the situation changes. Liberated masses manage to leave
Russia, with General Anders' Army, only to face new problems. Unforeseen
circumstances force total strangers to rely on each other, lending
a helping hand to conquer life's adversity.
When Eagles Die
Ambrose, Robert. Authorhouse, 2004
ISBN 1418489875
Available at: www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/
Author's website: www.RobertAmbros.com
This new historical novel spans three generations from the Eastern
Front in World War I through the Siberian gulags and the battlefields
of Second World War to the present; Coach Joe Bartkowski , the son
of an Anders' Army veteran, stuns the basketball world when he leads
a small college team to the national championships. Now sought after
by major universities, Joe finds his career threatened by unexplained
anxiety and panic attacks. Is it a midlife crisis as his therapist
claims, or does the answer lie in his family's history? When Eagles
Die embraces Joe's painful search for the truth, his unexpected
discoveries about himself, and the very nature of the human mind.
Worlds Apart Surviving identity and memory
Pawlowicz, Henry. . Authorhouse, 2004
ISBN 1418489875
Available at: http://foxley.org/
Worlds Apart is a novel about survival and a search for identity
through memory. It looks at the choices forced on us and those we
avoid making. It begins and ends with a fairy story told to the
young David Wilenski by his mother in a refugee camp in England.
The adult David looks back at life in that camp, realising its taboos
hide a story and pose a question over identities and the past. The
protagonists are his parents: Jadwiga, transported to the Soviet
Gulag under Stalin, and Wladek, taken as a slave labourer to Hitler's
Reich. Dogged by guilt, through archives and accounts prised from
his reluctant parents, David reassembles the shattered smithereens
of their lives. A remarkable picture emerges of ordinary people
struggling through war, love, and growing up, one in the "Jerusalem
of the North" - riven by antagonistic nations - the other on an
idyllic rural stage that is a military colony. These are the borderlands
of 20th century Eastern Europe and a refugee camp in the borderlands
of the UK.
The Bronski House
Marsden, Phillip, Arcade Publishing
(June 1997)
ISBN 155970392X
Available at: www.amazon.com/Bookstore/
If your ancestors come from Belorussia, especially around Nowogrodek,
you may find this "part novel, part reverie" interesting.
Daily Telegraph Book review had this to say: "An extraordinary,
multi-faceted narrative. From diaries and memories, it recreates
the true story of two Polish women -mother and daughter- amid the
destruction of a whole culture".
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