PublishedAustralian Scholarly, May 2017 |
ISBN9781925588279 |
FormatSoftcover, 368 pages |
Dimensions22.9cm × 15.2cm |
The author tracks the lives of Paul and Natalie, his parents, as they navigate their way through three repressive regimes. Both born in Russia in 1900, they experience the several revolutions, famine and civil war. As a son of a bourgeois merchant, in the early 1920s Paul comes under suspicion and when his cousin is arrested for spying for Germany he knows he has to leave.
He takes his bride, Natalie, a medical doctor, to Berlin expecting to stay a year. Fate decrees worsening repression in Russia and Paul and Natalie defect. From here on they are constantly in danger of the Soviet Secret Service. But with a combination of cunning, luck and determination they escape the NKVD but now have to learn to survive under the Nazi regime, with its racist agenda. They must appease the Gestapo and suspicious officials, and then survive the bombing in World War II. Post-war Germany is no haven following the Four Power agreements made at Yalta to repatriate all Russians, to imprisonment or worse. When another relative is arrested in Berlin, Paul and Natalie make desperate attempts to flee Europe. Eventually they succeed for their family, now with four children, to be sent to Australia. But Paul is overwhelmed by the effort and dies before he reaches the safety of Australia. But did Paul and Natalie have to misinform their son so completely to survive?
