Title: The man from Talalaivka
Description: In an idyllic Kylapchin village, 200 kilometres north-east of Kiev, in Ukraine's Sumskaya Oblast, a young man's life was overturned by the brutality of the Stalinist regime. It was 1929: Lenin had died five years earlier, his followers gradually scattering or succumbing to Secretary General Stalin's ruthless will. Upheaval took on a sinister new dimension as 'collectivisation' of farms was enforced throughout Stalin's new Russian empire; no greater effects of which were felt than by Peter and his family, along with millions of others in the Ukraine. Stalin's goal-to break and destroy the independence of Ukrainian farmers-did ultimately succeed. But at massive cost. Most were herded to 'collective farms', or kolkhozes. Others-like Peter's parents Yosef and Palasha-were gaoled on pretext of being 'kulaks' (wealthy farmers), then sentenced to five years' imprisonment in a Siberian labour camp. It was a one-way ticket to a slow death. Peter risked his life-and perhaps even the safety of his young family-and did the unthinkable: he forged travel documents and journeyed to the Siberian snow-bound prison camp in which his parents were incarcerated. The journey, and his capture by NKVD agents, almost cost him his life. Miraculously, he returned, changed by the haunting experience...
Subjects: Immigrants, Fiction, World War, 1939-1945, Conscript labor, History, Forced labor, Famine (Ukraine : 1932-1933) fast (uri) http://id.worldcat.org/fast/fst01353093, German Occupation of Ukraine (1941-1944) fast (uri) http://id.worldcat.org/fast/fst01353186, World War (1939-1945) fast (uri) http://id.worldcat.org/fast/fst01180924
Places: Australia, Germany, Ukraine
Time periods: 1921-1944, Famine, 1932-1933, German occupation, 1941-1944