LIKE LEAVES IN THE WIND

This is the story of a Jewish child from Krakow as the Germans invadePoland in 1939. Two-year-old Rita Blattberg and her parents flee theGerman advance only to be deported deep into the heart of the SovietUnion. After six years of hardship and starvation in a war-torn Russiapopulated by a colorful cast of characters - Polish deportees, Russianevacuees, native Mari, Udmurt and Tatars, mysterious 'higher-ups' fromMoscow - they return to a hometown inhabited by ghosts. Almost everyrelative in the extended Blattberg and Schreiber families has beenmurdered. A few, including an uncle who was saved by the Japanese consulto Lithuania, have survived through a succession of miracles large andsmall and remain scattered to the four winds. In 1948 young Rita leavesthe city of her birth, where her ancestors had dwelled for 500 years. TheBlattbergs take with them a bit of earth from a grandmother's grave andmove on to start a new life in the West, away from post-war Poland, withits communist regime and its pervasive anti-Semitism." Understated yetlyrical, the story is told through the eyes of a small child. The factsare buttressed by the testimony of adults as well as a unique set ofdocuments, namely postcards sent by Rita's grandmothers in 1940 and 1941,from occupied Poland. These postcards provide a valuable glimpse into thelife of the more than one million Polish citizens deported to the USSRfollowing the 1939 annexation by the Soviets of the eastern half of Poland- and the contacts that existed between the deportees and those left behindin occupied Poland, under the Germans and under the Soviets.