Foreword excerpt by Dr. Nancy K. Splain,
Rule of Law Liaison with the American Bar Association's Central and Eastern European Law Initiative 1998-2001 (ABA/CEELI).

Is is with great pleasure that I write this Foreword for I Heard My People Cry. I could not put this gripping story down, but read it well into the night, finishing it in one sitting. I am passionate about it.

A powerful book, one which indeed makes the story of Lise's family unforgettable.

This well-crafted book is a fitting tribute to one mother’s faith, determination and courage. But I Heard My People Cry is much more. It is also an inspiring testimony to the strength of the human spirit and to the power of faith and love. As such, this book about the experiences of one Dutch German family in the face of Stalin’s red terror represents a story which transcends cultural, ethnic and geographical boundaries. By documenting, through the voice of Lise, the struggles and suffering as well as the strengths and triumphs of the Huebert family, Elizabeth Lenci-Downs gives voice to all of the silent victims of tyranny whose stories have been lost, forgotten or repressed. (For it is a tool of dictators, of course, to squelch the stories of their victims and to rob whole peoples of their history.)

I Heard My People Cry is an important book. In like manner as Aleksandr I. Solzhenityn’s The Gulag Archipelago or Anne Frank’s dairy, this book reminds all of us who would enjoy the fruits of liberty that they are not easily won nor, once established, automatically maintained. And what a timely reminder it is.