Gorky Tales: The Memories 1940 to 1946 [Soft Cover ]

Svetlana was a young Jewish child growing up in the Soviet Union during the reign of Stalin. Life was difficult for Jews in the town of Gorky even before the Holocaust, but when the Germans brought war to Svetlana’s home, survival became a daily challenge. Now a grandmother of four, Svetlana has recorded, in the voice of a child, the events she lived through—as well as the various coping mechanisms, from lies to fantasy to the unvarnished truth, that helped her survive. Svetlana began life in the orphanage where her mother worked. As her manic and unpredictable mother toiled over other children, Svetlana took care of the youngest orphans. One day, the orphanage was bombed; Svetlana barely escaped. Her mother, desperate to save her daughter, sent her to an evacuation camp, where Svetlana nearly starved. The children from the camp were taken to a hospital in Gorky, but Svetlana was the only one to survive the trip. Yet these harrowing situations were only the first of many that Svetlana would undergo. As she grew older, she encountered secrets, grappled with temptation, and navigated the sometimes-unclear boundary between what was real and what was unreal—all under the cloud of a war she had no guarantee of surviving.