Excerpts

 My People

... I had to believe her to keep my wits about me-even to survive. I had to believe her. That was how it began.
Rumbling, swaying, our train of cattle cars crawled through the night. Painfully, like a loathsome, wobbling caterpillar it moved north¬ward at a snails pace so it would stay on the wide-track rails. Our destination? Siberia-a work camp-Stalin bred, from where no one ever returned...

Elizabeth

He turned to her—knelt down and held her. Then he took her face in his hands for a moment, looked at her gently, carefully. It seemed to Elizabeth that in her Papa's eyes she saw a great heavy sorrow among the tears. Then he kissed her. Papa Heinrich Koop would never forget that face no matter how long he lived. ...She stood quietly for a long time staring at a puddle of melted snow on the floor.
...An angry, frightened look played across her face driving away the tears. "He can't—" She kept saying—rocking back and forth, "He can't—he can't—he can't —
... All day long Suse and Elizabeth heard yelling, horses galloping—gunfire that seemed far away. They couldn't see the swarming, murderous mobs that were killing and plundering near the seashore.

The Will To Survive

...There was no sunrise. Only a damp, chilling haze filtered through our cattle car and then cold followed—river cold. We were still moving very fast through the heavy rain, still swayed, still rumbled, roared beside the river. I saw gray-blue water through the cracks. Mary and I held on to each other in the dark listening to that whirring and the thundering of guns. Those terrifying, shrill, whining sounds screamed louder and louder over the powerful, pounding cannons until I heard nothing else.
Someone shouted, "It's almost nine o'clock !"
The noise of war, crashing, exploding of shells, booming guns and that terrible whirring whine surrounded us.
Then we stopped. Just stopped. Bang! Bang! Bang! Connections between the train cars hurtled together in a massive shudder. The shrill whining and booming thunder were deafening.
"It's going to devour us," I screamed.
Everyone stared at that door in front of us as Uncle Heinrich pushed it open—very slowly...
"Oh what a sight!  There we were on the east bank of the Dnepr River and spread out on the west bank, directly across from us, was the German army.  I saw the glint of helmets..."