The end of the 1920s, the authors first memory: a knock on the door and the arrest of her uncle, guilty of anti-Soviet activities. He is to be executed. Born in 1923, a dozen or so kilometres from the pre-war Polish-Soviet border, Franceska Michalska is a citizen of occupied Ukraine. Her family miraculously survive the great famine of 1931-32 before falling victim to growing Stalinist terror and the mass deportation of Poles from the region to Kazakhstan. All the while, Franceska dreams of studying medicine. 8000 km and infinite difficulties later, she enters Poland and becomes a doctor, finally obtaining the Polish nationality she never had. Writing in a heartfelt yet matter-of-fact style, Michalska evokes daily life under Russian occupation. Now more than ever, this memoir reads like a warning against history repeating, while at the same time offering a testament to human strength and to hope.
