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Foreword by Norman Davies
Often overlooked in World War II accounts is the Soviet Union's brutal treatment of Polish citizens, including war crimes for which the Soviet and Russian governments have only recently admitted culpability. When God Looked the Other Way is the personal story of one of the victims of such unspeakable barbarism.
Wesley Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported, after "a knock on the door," with his mother and siblings to Siberia at the onset of the war. His father, a Polish army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, the murder of tens of thousands of Polish officers at the hands of the Soviet secret police. Being separated and deported marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which they endured years of fierce weather, meager food rations, and dangerous health conditions, first in the Soviet Union and then in Iran, where Adamczyk's mother succumbed to exhaustion after mounting a dangerous escape from the Soviets. Wandering from country to country and living in refugee camps and the homes of strangers, Adamczyk and his family struggled to survive and maintain their dignity amid the horrors of war.
Adamczyk here paints a stark picture of life in the Soviet Union and the unforgiving nature of communism and its champions. His childhood innocence becomes another of the war's casualties as he is forced to confront the inhumanity revealed in the manipulations and betrayals that obtain during times of war. A dramatic adventure that spans several continents, When God Looked the Other Way is a moving chronicle of dignity and courage during the darkest years of the twentieth century.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Norman Davies
Preface
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
Part I. Poland
1. Sarny
2. The Hunt
Part II. We Are Enslaved
3. A Knock on the Door
4. Train to Nowhere
Part III. The Inhuman Land
5. The Russian Steppes
6. Semiozersk
7. Winter and Wolves
8. The Petroviches
9. War and Shortages
10. The Interrogation
11. Holding On
12. Starvation and Vodka
13. Tutoring
14. The Culture of Communism
Part IV. Escape to Freedom
15. The Escape Plan
16. Jurek's Ordeal
17. Aboard the Kaganovich
Part V. The Bitter Taste of Freedom
18. The Beach at Pahlevi
19. The Air Force Hangar
20. The Darkest Hour
21. An Unexpected Visitor
22. Shattered Hopes
23. Ahvaz
24. Desert Games
25. The Orphanage
26. The Silver Case
Part VI. People without a Country
27. At the Crossroads
28. "Where the Sun Never Sets"
Part VII. Journey's End
29. The Magnificent Aquitania
30. Thanksgiving Day
31. Making Peace with God
Part VIII. The Passage of Time
32. For Whom the Bells Toll
33. The Circle Closes
Afterword: Circumstances Surrounding the Katyn Tragedy
Appendix: Letters to America
Notes
