Why a Booktrail?
1941: A haunting story based on family accounts and memories from survivors of Soviet occupation
Between Shades Of Gray
What you need to know before your trail
One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and young brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia. An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun. Lina doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her father or her friends again. But she refuses to give up hope. Lina hopes for her family. For her country. For her future. For love – first love, with the boy she barely knows but knows she does not want to lose …Will hope keep Lina alive?
Travel Guide
Lithuania and Siberia
This novel is based on first-hand family accounts and memories from survivors. The author, Ruta Sepetys, is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee and so the level of detail and personal interest in this story gives a unique, raw and painful account of the Siberian gulags.
Do you know much about the Baltic states and their involvement in WW2?
Many Lithuanians for example were deported from Lithuania to Siberia. Lithuanian people suffered horribly and many were sent to the gulags.
In this novel which reads as a graphic account and so is very upsetting and raw, the NKVD officers are shown to be nothing more than inhumane monsters. They saw the killing, the murder of thousands of innocent people as simply their job and had no qualms about the level of depravity they engaged in each day.
This story might focus on the cruel fate of a small girl, exiled to Siberia, but she is the symbol of many who were separated from their families and had to endurance hardship and, often abuse, in order to survive.
Even part of the journey is epic –
Day 1 – Kaunas Lithunia Day 2 – Vilnius Lithunia Day 4 – Minsk – Belarus Day 5 – Orsha – Belarus Day 6 – Smolensk – Russia
Day 21 – Cross the Ural Mountains Day 30 – Omsk – Siberia Day 42 – Aftai Labour Camp Day 306 – Aftai Labour Camp Day 313 – Biysk – Siberia
Day 319 – Makarov Camp Day 320 – Banks of Angara River Day 350 – Ust Kust – Siberia Day 380 – Yakutsk – Siberia Day 410 – Arctic Circle Day 440 – Trohmovsk – North Pole
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Between Shades Of Gray
Destination : Lithuania, Belarus, Siberia, Russia Author/Guide: Ruta Sepetys Departure Time: 1941
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
