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christal's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
positivelykylereads's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
eggjen's review against another edition
4.0
This was a fascinating look at what life was like for a Jew in Siberia during WW2. A coming of age that few of us can relate to. My 6th grader and I both enjoyed this one
mrsmisko's review against another edition
dark
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
katykelly's review against another edition
5.0
If you want a fuller picture of human tragedies of World War Two, you have Anne Frank, I Am David, and really, you need to read The Endless Steppe.
It wasn't just the Nazis committing atrocities in this period. Easy to forget this, and I had. When I realised that Esther and her family are not taken from their home and shoved onto cattle trucks by Germans but by the Russians in 1941, I was shocked at my ignorance.
It's a story not unlike the train journeys heading to concentration camps. Esther's Polish parents are accused of being capitalists, and taken to Siberia, where they then live and work for five years.
Being a true account, we know that Esther as author is going to make it back alive. But this doesn't stop her story being any less horrifying, sad and moving. Friends and acquaintances die around her - from the freezing conditions, starvation, the work.
The conditions of Esther's new life are tragic, their existence unbelievable, and seeing her become used to her surroundings, eventually attend school and grow up feeling all those feelings we've all experienced (jealousy over a nice pair of boots, feeling for a boy, craving success in the talent show) - she could be any teenager anywhere.
It isn't a long novel, and she doesn't dwell on any one incident for long, the book moves along to a swift conclusion of how she makes it back to Poland at the end of the war (a little too quickly, I thought).
I'm glad I've finally discovered this, and hope to encourage the age group this would be best used with to read it - 11-15 year olds, ideally in school. It would work well alongside studies of World War Two, Anne Frank and twentieth century European history.
It's a very human account of an adolescent caught up in horrific circumstances, and how she and her family did their best to pull through together. Uplifting and desperately sad.
It wasn't just the Nazis committing atrocities in this period. Easy to forget this, and I had. When I realised that Esther and her family are not taken from their home and shoved onto cattle trucks by Germans but by the Russians in 1941, I was shocked at my ignorance.
It's a story not unlike the train journeys heading to concentration camps. Esther's Polish parents are accused of being capitalists, and taken to Siberia, where they then live and work for five years.
Being a true account, we know that Esther as author is going to make it back alive. But this doesn't stop her story being any less horrifying, sad and moving. Friends and acquaintances die around her - from the freezing conditions, starvation, the work.
The conditions of Esther's new life are tragic, their existence unbelievable, and seeing her become used to her surroundings, eventually attend school and grow up feeling all those feelings we've all experienced (jealousy over a nice pair of boots, feeling for a boy, craving success in the talent show) - she could be any teenager anywhere.
It isn't a long novel, and she doesn't dwell on any one incident for long, the book moves along to a swift conclusion of how she makes it back to Poland at the end of the war (a little too quickly, I thought).
I'm glad I've finally discovered this, and hope to encourage the age group this would be best used with to read it - 11-15 year olds, ideally in school. It would work well alongside studies of World War Two, Anne Frank and twentieth century European history.
It's a very human account of an adolescent caught up in horrific circumstances, and how she and her family did their best to pull through together. Uplifting and desperately sad.
grllopez's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
4.0
The Endless Steppe
Esther Hautzig
Published 1968
⭐⭐⭐⭐
And I think that someplace inside of me there was something else -- some little pleasurable pride that the little rich girl of Vilna had endured poverty just as well as anyone else.
The Endless Steppe is a true story, a memoir about young Esther Hautzig and her immediate family living in exile on the steppes of Siberia during WWII. During the war, life was comfy and privileged in Poland until Esther and her family were arrested by the Soviet government, accused of being "capitalists," -- what a crime! It took two months by crowded cattle car to arrive in Siberia, where they were assigned to hard labor camps and had little access to food or clothing to sustain themselves through winter.
However, thanks to the intervention of Britain, Esther's family was released from their initial assignments and permitted to live in a village where they shared a home with other poor villagers. Esther's parents found menial work in order to survive, and Esther was allowed to go to school.
For the next five years, Esther grew up assimilating to the Russian language, the culture, and Soviet nationalism. She made friends and even had a crush. Life was typical for this young teenager; all she desired was to be liked by others and to make friendships. Absolute poverty and near starvation could not suppress her coming-of-age experience. Even a lack of school books and supplies did not prevent her from studying, learning, and excelling.
When Esther's father was ordered to the front lines of Russia, Esther, her mother, and grandmother had to be extra resourceful to find food. Esther did her part and learned how to sew to make clothes for others in exchange for milk and potatoes. She also collected food that fell from passing trains, which she did apprehensively because she believed it was theft.
At the end of the war, Esther's father returned to Poland, and he wrote to his wife to come home. Esther protested because she felt connected to the steppe -- she had fallen in love with it.
I had come to love the steppe, the huge space, and the solitude. Living in the crowded little huts, the steepe had become the place where a person could think her thoughts, sort out her feelings, and do her dreaming.
But obviously, she must return to Poland. Unfortunately, someone else was living in their home now, and all of their belongings were gone, including the photo albums that Esther had wanted to take when they were arrested. It was a "crushing blow," Esther remembers, that nothing of their past remained.
And then came the most terrible news of all. It came from survivors of the concentration camps,...all the members of my father's family -- not one of them had survived the German massacre of the Jews. Of my mother's family...My mother's brother, sister, her mother, her aunts and uncles, my beloved cousins, all were dead.
Here they discovered that their own deportation to Siberia had saved their lives. "Hunger, cold, and misery were nothing; life had been granted" to them. They thanked God.
* * *
I am thankful to have found this little gem because it is a history I knew nothing about. Esther was just a sweet girl full of love for family with an encouraging and joyful spirit. Under such hardship, she rose to the occasion, demonstrating resourcefulness, perseverance, and courage.
It was only after an American presidential candidate had encouraged Esther to write about her personal experiences that she did so. She wrote this autobiographical story as if she were that young girl reliving her days in Siberia again, though over twenty years had passed. Now, gratefully, we have her story forever.
Esther (Rudomin) Hautzig
1930 - 2009
tbyers31's review against another edition
4.0
This gem sat on my book table for weeks before I finally cracked it open. It recounts a slice of history previously unknown to me--the Soviets, after they had devoured eastern Poland in the devil's pact with Hitler in 1939, decided to deport Jews to Siberia as slave labor. Young Esther tells the story, which is both survival and coming-of-age tale. Exile to the brutal wilderness of the steppe becomes salvation from an even more unthinkable fate had they been left behind (at one point, Esther describes her mother's anguish that on the day they were taken from their home: her brother shows up, the soldiers ask if he's one of them; wishing to spare him from her own fate, his mother denies he's part of the family; later, as news of the holocaust emerges, carries it as her life's largest regret).
What I loved about this story was that despite her terrible ordeal, the physical hardship unimaginable to me (no winter coat or boots, knitting with frozen hands on a sweater made of worn out material, for a rich woman who has outgrown it by the time it's finished), Esther remains a young girl trying to find her place among her friends at school. To do so, she must move away from her culture toward the generic Soviet-Siberian one.
Reads like what I'd imagine to find if Dostoyevsky had written a YA novel.
What I loved about this story was that despite her terrible ordeal, the physical hardship unimaginable to me (no winter coat or boots, knitting with frozen hands on a sweater made of worn out material, for a rich woman who has outgrown it by the time it's finished), Esther remains a young girl trying to find her place among her friends at school. To do so, she must move away from her culture toward the generic Soviet-Siberian one.
Reads like what I'd imagine to find if Dostoyevsky had written a YA novel.
briannam177's review against another edition
5.0
I loved the book. It was perfect. I loved how she used words I have never heard of before to describe things. It moved quite fast but was still perfect.
justicepirate's review against another edition
3.0
When I was about 11 or 12, I had bought this book and couldn't wait to read it, but never did because I had issues of dyslexia that I wouldn't work through at that time. Eventually a flood came years later and it was destroyed and the book was a waste of money. Thankfully I remembered how I really wanted to read it and now at 29, I did so!
Esther grew up in a rich Jewish family in Poland during WWII and her family was shipped out to Siberia to work labor until they were able to have more leniency once Russia was fighting against the Germans. This book shows her true life upbringing for the few years she spent in Siberia. There were hardships and joys, and a craving to just continue to live and a hope to see her family again. It was not always a joyful book, considering the life that she lived and the time period she endured through, but it was a very good book that I wish I did read as a pre-teen and recommend for any pre-teen currently.
Esther grew up in a rich Jewish family in Poland during WWII and her family was shipped out to Siberia to work labor until they were able to have more leniency once Russia was fighting against the Germans. This book shows her true life upbringing for the few years she spent in Siberia. There were hardships and joys, and a craving to just continue to live and a hope to see her family again. It was not always a joyful book, considering the life that she lived and the time period she endured through, but it was a very good book that I wish I did read as a pre-teen and recommend for any pre-teen currently.