A01=Wesley Adamczyk
army
Author_Wesley Adamczyk
autobiography
biography
boyhood
Category=DNBH
Category=DNXM
Category=NHD
Category=NHWL
Category=NHWR7
childhood
children
communism
deportation
disease
displacement
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
escape
exile
genocide
history
holocaust
hunger
imprisonment
iran
katyn massacre
literature
memoir
nonfiction
personal narrative
poland
poverty
prisoner
redemption
refugee
russia
russian steppes
secret police
separation
siberia
soviet union
war
Product details
- ISBN 9780226004440
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 15 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 May 2006
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In the shadow of the Holocaust, the Soviet Union's quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk's gripping memoir, "When God Looked the Other Way", gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism. Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Siberia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre. The family's separation and deportation marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which Adamczyk endured nearly intolerable living conditions, meager food rations, and life-threatening epidemics, first in the Soviet Union and then in Iran, where his mother succumbed to exhaustion after mounting a harrowing escape from the Soviets. A memoir of a childhood spent in unspeakable circumstances, "When God Looked the Other Way" not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy.
Unflinching and poignant, "When God Looked the Other Way" stands as a testament to the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of an atrocity yet to receive its historical due.
Wesley Adamczyk is a retired chemist and tax consultant who lives in Illinois. He is also a champion bridge player.
