Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
It's not often that I feel ignorant, or worse, ashamed of my ignorance, but reading this book made me feel that way. Apparently, this is something I never learned about in school, and I should have. We learned about the atrocities Hitler committed on the Jews, but we somehow overlook the atrocities Stalin committed in his effort to "annex" other countries to the Soviet Union.
Lina was fifteen, with aspirations to go to art school, but instead was carted off to a work camp in Siberia with her mother and younger brother. That sounds bad but not so bad when put that way. It didn't happen overnight. For six weeks, she was crammed in a cattle car with others. People died. They went hungry. She saw her father in another car briefly, but he was carted off elsewhere.
In Siberia, they were forced to work for very little rations. They got sicker, but Lina and her family persevered. Then, after a year in captivity, she and her family were moved to another labor camp in the Arctic Circle, where the sun doesn't shine for months at a time. They get sicker, they get colder, more people die.
I realize I have oversimplified this, but the truth is, this is something you need to read for yourself. I can't make you feel the things I felt when I read this; you have to do it yourself. I will say this though, it is a powerful story, and one that needs to be told, even if it is a work of fiction. These things happened, and the only way to prevent their happening again is to become educated about the situation.
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