Exiled to Siberia: A Polish Child's Wwii Journey

by Klaus Hergt, Tadeusz Piotrowski (Foreword by)

September 1, 1939, promised to be another beautiful late summer day. Hank slowly walked to his aunt's house for one of her treats anxiously awaiting her call to come in. Already the smell of boiling chocolate wafted through the open kitchen window. "I hope she puts lemon sauce on it," he thought.

It was just after noon, and the warm air stood calm between the buildings when a distant droning filled the air. Planes! Airplanes! His eyes searched into the hazy, blue sky, when suddenly the air was filled with a screaming, whistling sound. It rose to a crescendo and then ended abruptly in a series of loud explosions. The air shook, clouds of smoke rose from the direction of the railroad station, somewhere glass shattered. His aunt came rushing out of the house: "Get into the root cellar! The war has started!"

That day, September 1, 1939, literally "out of the blue," a carefree and protected childhood came to an end, and Hank, a ten-year-old boy, was propelled onto a road of sorrow and deprivation, and toward years of foreign exile.

235 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another WW II memoir of a Pole and his family's deportation to the depths of the USSR simply because they were Poles. I am not sure that it's that much different than those written by others (Adamczyk and Waydenfeld for example) except that each story of these times, of course, is unique. Interestingly, the protagonist of this memoir did not write it, rather it was written by a friend. As such, it is less of a dispassionare recounting of facts by he who experienced, and more of a story told about a good friend who Hergt admires and it definitely reads that way. The admiration that Hergt feels for Hank comes through and permeates his storytelling. His narration has a kind of authenticity and warmth that is highly engaging. It is obvious that Dr. Hergt spent a great deal of time researching this memoir, and he skillfully blends history of the time with Hank's memories. All in all it is an exceedingly well written book, perhaps not in the same category of When God Looked the Other Way or The Ice Road, but much better than most.