When God Looked the Other Way An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption

Name: When God Looked the Other Way An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption
Price: 3.96 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780226004440

ISBN-10: 0226004449

ISBN-13: 9780226004440

Edition: 2006

Authors: Wesley Adamczyk, Norman Davies

List price: $17.00

30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!

Marketplace

4 new & used from $3.96

what's this?

Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:

You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Description:

Often overlooked in accounts of World War II is the Soviet Union's quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens, a campaign that included, we now know, war crimes for which the Soviet and Russian governments only recently admitted culpability. Standing in the shadow of the Holocaust, this episode of European history is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk's gripping memoir, "When God Looked the Other Way," now gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism. Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Siberia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by… the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, in which tens of thousands of Polish officers were slain at the hands of the Soviet secret police. The family's separation and deportation in 1940 marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which the family endured fierce living conditions, meager food rations, chronic displacement, and rampant disease, first in the Soviet Union and then in Iran, where Adamczyk's mother succumbed to exhaustion after mounting a harrowing escape from the Soviets. Wandering from country to country and living in refugee camps and the homes of strangers, Adamczyk struggled to survive and maintain his dignity amid the horrors of war. "When God Looked the Other Way" is a memoir of a boyhood lived in unspeakable circumstances, a book that not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy. It is also a book that offers astark picture of the unforgiving nature of Communism and its champions. Unflinching and poignant, W"hen God Looked the Other Way" will stand as a testament to the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of episodes yet to receive their historical due. "Adamczyk recounts the story of his own wartime childhood with exemplary precision and immense emotional sensitivity, presenting the ordeal of one family with the clarity and insight of a skilled novelist. . . . I have read many descriptions of the Siberian odyssey and of other forgotten wartime episodes. But none of them is more informative, more moving, or more beautifully written than "When God Looked the Other Way,""--From the Foreword by Norman Davies, author of "Europe: A History" and "Rising '44: The ""Battle"" for ""Warsaw""" "A finely wrought memoir of loss and survival."--"Publishers Weekly ""Adamczyk's unpretentious prose is well-suited to capture that truly awful reality." --Andrew Wachtel, "Chicago Tribune Books ""Mr. Adamczyk writes heartfelt, straightforward prose. . . . This book sheds light on more than one forgotten episode of history."--Gordon Haber, "New York Sun ""One of the most remarkable World War II sagas I have ever read. It is history with a human face."--Andrew Beichman, "Washington Times "

Book details

List price: $17.00
Copyright year: 2006
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 5/15/2006
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 288
Size: 5.98" wide x 8.94" long x 0.79" tall
Weight: 1.034
Language: English



Contents


Foreword by Norman Davies


Preface


Acknowledgments


Author's Note



Poland



Sarny



The Hunt



We Are Enslaved



A Knock on the Door



Train to Nowhere



The Inhuman Land



The Russian Steppes



Semiozersk



Winter and Wolves



The Petroviches



War and Shortages



The Interrogation



Holding On



Starvation and Vodka



Tutoring



The Culture of Communism



Escape to Freedom



The Escape Plan



Jurek's Ordeal



Aboard the Kaganovich



The Bitter Taste of Freedom



The Beach at Pahlevi



The Air Force Hangar



The Darkest Hour



An Unexpected Visitor



Shattered Hopes



Ahvaz



Desert Games



The Orphanage



The Silver Case



People without a Country



At the Crossroads



"Where the Sun Never Sets"



Journey's End



The Magnificent Aquitania



Thanksgiving Day



Making Peace with God



The Passage of Time



For Whom the Bells Toll



The Circle Closes


Afterword: Circumstances Surrounding the Katyn Tragedy


Appendix: Letters to America


Notes