My Sister’s Mother A Memoir of War, Exile, and Stalin’s Siberia Donna Solecka Urbikas
Honoree, Biography/Memoir, Society of Midland Authors Annual Literary Awards
Finalist for Autobiography & Memoir, Foreword INDIE Book Awards
Finalist, Memoir, Midwest Book Awards
Finalist, Traditional Nonfiction Book, Chicago Writers Association Awards
A searing tale of war, trauma, and survival
Donna Solecka Urbikas grew up in the Midwest during the golden years of the American century. But her Polish-born mother and half sister had endured dehumanizing conditions during World War II, as slave laborers in Siberia. War and exile created a profound bond between mother and older daughter, one that Donna would struggle to find with either of them.
In 1940, Janina Ślarzynska and her five-year-old daughter Mira were taken by Soviet secret police (NKVD) from their small family farm in eastern Poland and sent to Siberia with hundreds of thousands of others. So began their odyssey of hunger, disease, cunning survival, desperate escape across a continent, and new love amidst terrible circumstances.
But in the 1950s, baby boomer Donna yearns for a “normal” American family while Janina and Mira are haunted by the past. In this unforgettable memoir, Donna recounts her family history and her own survivor’s story, finally understanding the damaged mother who had saved her sister.
Donna Solecka Urbikas
was born in Coventry, England, and immigrated with her parents and sister to Chicago in 1952. After careers as a high school science teacher and environmental engineer, she is now a writer, realtor, and community volunteer. She lives in Chicago with her husband.
Praise
“This stunning, heartfelt memoir looks unflinchingly at the scars borne by one Polish immigrant family as their daughter tries to become a normal American girl in Chicago. A gripping study of family dynamics, this is also a must-read for World War II history buffs.” —Leonard Kniffel, author of A Polish Son in the Motherland
“After the Soviets invaded eastern Poland in September 1939, they deported nearly half a million people into the interior of the USSR. The sufferings of these captives did not end with their release from labor and concentration camps but continued throughout their lives, affecting their families drastically. This poignant and moving memoir is essential reading for all who want to understand the nature of the Soviet Gulag system and the problems faced by its former inmates in adapting to a normal life.” —Antony Polonsky, chief historian of the Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw
“Superbly records the bitter suffering both of victims of the Soviet Gulag and of displaced emigrants. And, we witness the enormous problems of traumatized parents in connecting and sharing their experiences with their American-raised children. In this context, Donna’s teenage ‘tragedy’of failing to make the cheerleading squad is particularly poignant.” —Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, author of Between Nazis and Soviets
“An unprecedented saga of a loving mother and her two daughters raised years and oceans apart: the older one in Soviet slavery during World War II, the younger in freedom and safety in the United States. The demons that possessed the mother in slavery—fighting like a tigress to protect her child—never left her in freedom, emotionally harming her younger daughter. A unique perspective on the tragic deportation of Poles to Siberia.” —Wesley Adamczyk, author of When God Looked the Other Way
“A primer for all who seek to understand the harrowing journey of Poles during this fateful period.” —Allen Paul, author of Katyń: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth
“Shows not only how love, loss, fear, and hope intersect in the lives of refugees, but also how they reverberate—for good and for bad—in the lives that follow. Enlightening..” —James Conroyd Martin, author of The Poland Trilogy
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