This selection was suggested by one of our Sizzler members as our December read after hearing an inspiring presentation by the author. I wasn't sure how I would feel about yet another Holocaust story as I had just completed one recently; but I was pleasantly surprised because this was a very different story. My past readings had never dealt with the Jewish exportation from Poland to Siberia, and the mistreatment from the Soviets.
Irene's parents had been non-practicing Jews who fully embraced the Socialist movement in Poland, and it was a hard blow for them to experience the reality of Communist Russia--It was not a "party for the people", but once again, a dictatorship similar to the Germans, where the lower classes worked for the elitist government.
My heart broke for Irene in so many ways. Her relationship to her mother held no warmth. Her relationship to her sister also felt cold with many references to how Halina only bossed her around or totally ignored her. Her physical pain with her feet and constant cold. Her need for activity and friends to play with, which no one seemed to understand. Her avoidance of the traumas she suffered by stuffing her memories for so many years. Her determination to finish this memoir for the sake of Naomi, her daughter who passed away in a car accident.
The amazing part of this story is not the hard, gruelling, horrific details...but the after-story of Irene's success, of her many degrees, of her current volunteer work in telling this story to young adults in school settings. It seemed as if she needed to forge ahead, to prove to herself that she could bury the past and live a full and productive life...however in embracing her past, she became the voice of so many people who may have been lost forever in No Man's Land.
