Like Film "The Way Back," Debut Novel "Maps and Shadows" Traces Lives of Siberian Gulag Survivors

Feb. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- Stalin's banishment of nearly two million innocent people to Siberian forced labor camps is brought to life in all its harsh reality in Australian director Peter Weir's new film "The Way Back." This same frozen wasteland provides the dramatic setting for American author Krysia Jopek's stunning debut novel "Maps and Shadows." (ISBN: 978-1-60772-007-2)

Author Krysia Jopek hopes her book, and films like "The Way Back," will help open the world's eyes to this tragic episode in history.

"It is amazing to me that so few people know about the Soviet cruelties committed against the Poles during and after World War II," she says.

In her novel "Maps and Shadows" a Polish family is torn from its farm and sent by cattle car to a punishing Siberian labor camp. The tale is based on her father's real experiences. Watching "The Way Back" brought those nearly unendurable circumstances vividly to life.

"Weir's movie dramatizes what conditions were like for the characters in 'Maps and Shadows,' " says Jopek, "and especially for the men and boys who were forced to fell trees in the vast, deathly cold forest."

Jopek takes a fresh stylistic approach to the subject. She fuses a minimalist narrative with lush lyricism. The characters in this slender but powerful book take turns narrating the events that affect each differently: the father is burdened by shame over not being able to protect his family; the son is forced to grow up quickly; the daughter seeks comfort in broken bits of poetry; the mother ages overnight from fear and worry.

After Germany invaded Russia in 1941, Stalin released the deported Poles, including Jopek's family. Like the characters in "The Way Back," the family leaves the frozen forest for the extreme heat of the desert.

"The father of the family (my grandfather) ends up fighting in Italy," says Jopek, "the women and children are sent to Tanzania to live in relocation camps, and the boy (my father), too young for combat, stays in Palestine training with the Polish army as a cadet."

Amazingly, Jopek's family survived and eventually immigrated to the U.S. along with many other displaced Poles. Sadly, stories about the Polish deportations during World War II are largely absent from popular history—especially among younger generations.

A young history major in a college-level English class Jopek teaches recently read "Maps and Shadows." "He confessed he'd had no idea about the brutal Soviet treatment of the Poles, the staggering number of deaths, and how the Poles—after fighting actively in World War II—could not return to a free Poland."

Reasons for the absence of these stories are complex. The Soviet Union suppressed vast amounts of writings about the Siberian gulag experience and Poland's heroic role in World War II.  In fact, only since the fall of communism in Poland are many of these stories coming to light.  

Thanks to films like "The Way Back" and books like "Maps and Shadows," readers and moviegoers who share a fascination with World War II now have an opportunity to discover a lost piece of that war's history.  

"Maps and Shadows" by Krysia Jopek is published by Aquila Polonica and available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Shadows-Novel-Krysia-Jopek/dp/...

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About Aquila Polonica Publishing
Aquila Polonica is dedicated to publishing, in English, the Polish experience of World War II with first-hand accounts, memoirs, photographs, artwork, poetry, literature and historical studies. http://www.polandww2.com