What in Life Were Wings by Barbara Isbister
1940. World War II is raging in Europe. While the world is focused on Germany, the long arm of Stalin has found its way to eastern Poland.
In midwinter a young girl, Zofia, and her family are forced out of their home and deported to a destination thousands of miles away in the Siberian Gulag, where the value of human life has no meaning. Zofia's life changes forever as she makes an epic journey across continents; a journey in which she becomes a woman, but never forgets her lost idyllic life - the golden days in the golden fields back home.
Based on the almost unknown, true story of deportation, ethnic cleansing and genocide, it is a story of despair and hope, heart-breaking loss and resilience, testing the limits and strength of the human spirit.
Ever greater challenges and the dilemma of her life loom ahead. Will any of the 1.69 million deportees escape and return to their beloved homeland against such unimaginable oppressors?
What in Life Were Wings is a gripping story that will stay with the reader long after the final page has fallen.