Donna Solecka Urbikas grew up in the Midwest during the golden years of the American century.
Finalist, Best Traditional Non-Fiction Book, Chicago Writers Association".
In this unforgettable memoir, Donna recounts her family history and her own survivor s story, finally understanding the damaged mother who had saved her sister.
But in the 1950s, baby boomer Donna yearns for a normal American family while Janina and Mira are haunted by the past.
So began their odyssey of hunger, disease, cunning survival, desperate escape across a continent, and new love amidst terrible circumstances.
In 1940, Janina Slarzynska and her five-year-old daughter Mira were taken by Soviet secret police (NKVD) from their small family farm in eastern Poland and sent to Siberia with hundreds of thousands of others.
War and Exile created a profound bond between mother and older daughter, one that Donna would struggle to find with either of them.
But her Polish-born mother and half sister had endured dehumanizing conditions during World War II, as slave laborers in Siberia.
Donna Solecka Urbikas grew up in the Midwest during the golden years of the American century
