Album of My Life

by Ann Szedlecki

Ann Szedlecki was a Hollywood-film-loving fourteen-year-old when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and she fled to the Soviet Union with her older brother, hoping to return for the rest of her family later. Instead, she ended up spending most of the next six and a half years alone in the Soviet Union, enduring the harsh conditions of northern Siberia under Stalin’s Communist regime. Szedlecki’s beautifully written story, which lovingly reconstructs her pre-war childhood in Lodz, is also compelling for its candour about her experiences as a woman in the Soviet Union during World War II. As a very young woman without family, living largely by her wits, she was only too aware of her own vulnerability, and she met every challenge with a fierce determination to survive.

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[William A Camp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldnt put it down

Will never forget
A true story of hardship during the war. A horrific memoir yet miraculous. I felt honored to have a glimpse into this life