The Long Journey Home
The Long Journey Home by Flora Leipman
BookCrossing - bookring -
dododumpling
Rating - 9/10
From the back of the book
Flora Leipman born in Glasgow in 1918 & spent a happy childhood there with her family. In 1932, after the death of their father, Flora's mother decided to take the children back to her native Russia. Within a year of arriving in the Soviet Union, Flora's mother is accused of being a British spy & sentenced to ten years in Stalin's notorious labour camps. The rest of the family followed one by one until Fferself was arrested in 1937 &, after 5 months in solitary confinement, sent to the camps.
This was just the beginning of a Leipman's extraordinary fight for survival. Even when she was released from the camps in 1941, ill & weak from malnutrition, Flora remained under suspicion because of her British origins. Fighting to look after her mother, who never fully recovers from her ordeal, Florad life in contemporary Russia with bravery & determination, but never lost sight of her ultimate goal - one day she would go home.
A fantastic read, Flora's strength of character & determination shone through. An amazing story of Flora's life, from the 1930s to 1980s, in the USSR. Born in Glasgow Flora is taken, along with her siblings, to the USSR by her Russian Jewish mother influenced by the pro-Soviet propaganda espoused by the likes of George Bernard Shaw & Lady Astor. Flora endures life in labour camps, food shortages, grinding poverty & the huge amount of red tape needed to achieve anything in the USSR. Eventually, in 1984, Flora gets her exit visa & returns to the UK.
BookCrossing - bookring -
dododumpling
Rating - 9/10
From the back of the book
Flora Leipman born in Glasgow in 1918 & spent a happy childhood there with her family. In 1932, after the death of their father, Flora's mother decided to take the children back to her native Russia. Within a year of arriving in the Soviet Union, Flora's mother is accused of being a British spy & sentenced to ten years in Stalin's notorious labour camps. The rest of the family followed one by one until Fferself was arrested in 1937 &, after 5 months in solitary confinement, sent to the camps.
This was just the beginning of a Leipman's extraordinary fight for survival. Even when she was released from the camps in 1941, ill & weak from malnutrition, Flora remained under suspicion because of her British origins. Fighting to look after her mother, who never fully recovers from her ordeal, Florad life in contemporary Russia with bravery & determination, but never lost sight of her ultimate goal - one day she would go home.
A fantastic read, Flora's strength of character & determination shone through. An amazing story of Flora's life, from the 1930s to 1980s, in the USSR. Born in Glasgow Flora is taken, along with her siblings, to the USSR by her Russian Jewish mother influenced by the pro-Soviet propaganda espoused by the likes of George Bernard Shaw & Lady Astor. Flora endures life in labour camps, food shortages, grinding poverty & the huge amount of red tape needed to achieve anything in the USSR. Eventually, in 1984, Flora gets her exit visa & returns to the UK.