As the story opens, it\u2019s 1941, and the residents of Soviet-occupied Lithuania are receiving news that the German army is going to invade. University student Leva Koslowski and her younger brother, Al, decide to flee the country, because although Soviet control had been horrible, the Germans are rumored to be much worse. The pair head to Sweden, but Leva\u2019s boyfriend, Olek, stays behind in Lithuania. So do Leva\u2019s parents, Zeneta and Matis, who have a cabin in the woods in Ponary where they allow Olek to stay. Soon, Zeneta and Matis attempt to leave, as well, but are caught and arrested by Soviet border guards. Before long, the Germans begin mass executions in the woods. Olek manages to help an injured Jewish boy in hiding, and it\u2019s not long before Olek himself is in trouble. Al makes it to the United States and joins the war effort as quickly as he can; soon, he\u2019s back in Europe with Allied forces. Meanwhile, Zeneta is struggling for her life, along with other Lithuanians whom the Soviets have shipped to Siberia. Toyn\u2019s narrative is based on true events\u2014most notably, the horrors of the Ponary Massacre\u2014and it\u2019s at its strongest when describing, without embellishment, unthinkable events. For instance, as German power waned, prisoners were forced to dig up and systematically burn corpses to cover up the fact that there were mass graves in the Ponary forest. This included the placement of thermite grenades to ensure that the fire \u201cburned hot enough to incinerate the bodies\u201d; the resulting blazes would then burn \u201cfor three days or until a heap of ashes remained.\u201d The dialogue isn\u2019t always as sharp, as characters sometimes unnecessarily narrate their actions with statements such as \u201cI have a gift for each of you.\u201d Overall, though, the work succeeds in its author\u2019s aim to shed light on \u201cevents largely unknown to Western audiences.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the story opens, it\u2019s 1941, and the residents of Soviet-occupied Lithuania are receiving news that the German army is going to invade. University student Leva Koslowski and her younger brother, Al, decide to flee the country, because although Soviet control had been horrible, the Germans are rumored to be much worse. The pair head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}