A review by amawomps
Sentence: Siberia: A Story of Survival by Ann Lehtmets

4.0

My dad recommended this book to me as it turns out that my great grandparents experienced similar things that the author had as Estonian deportees sentenced to Siberia. This book was real. Ann's 17 years spent in Siberia were written as if she was talking across the table from me, I could almost hear the accent. Her personality was perfect for the tragic situations she was thrust in, always persevering and still looking at the beauty around her. She was sent to a Russian land where her freedoms and family were stolen from her, yet every few chapters she would admire still how beautiful her surroundings were underneath her starving friends. A beautiful quote from the book says her ideals best, "The people are Russian but not the land, we're in God's hands." I've learned a lot from this book, not just about what I could gather from my family's history which will never truly be known, but about the forgotten souls who perhaps faced feelings worse than death in their hard and stolen lives. It's extremely rare that stories like these are told, and so I strongly encourage anybody interested in World War II to read about this special culture that is so close to being forgotten about. She left nothing unsaid regardless of its entertainment factor; and that's how I believe all memoirs should be written, as that's exactly how we live our lives.