Between Shades Of Gray

Travel Guide

Lithuania and Siberia

This novel is based on first-hand family accounts and memories from survivors. The author, Ruta Sepetys, is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee and so the level of detail and personal interest in this story gives a unique, raw and painful account of the Siberian gulags.

Do you know much about the Baltic states and their involvement in WW2?

Many Lithuanians for example were deported from Lithuania to Siberia. Lithuanian people suffered horribly and many were sent to the gulags.

In this novel which reads as a graphic account and so is very upsetting and raw, the NKVD officers  are shown to be nothing more than inhumane monsters. They saw the killing, the murder of thousands of innocent people as simply their job and had no qualms about the level of depravity they engaged in each day.

This story might focus on the cruel fate of a small girl, exiled to Siberia,  but she is the symbol of many who were separated from their families and had to endurance hardship and, often abuse, in order to survive.

Even part of the journey is epic –

Day 1 – Kaunas Lithunia   Day 2 – Vilnius  Lithunia   Day 4 – Minsk – Belarus   Day 5 – Orsha – Belarus   Day 6 – Smolensk – Russia

Day 21 – Cross the Ural Mountains   Day 30 – Omsk – Siberia  Day 42 – Aftai Labour Camp   Day 306  – Aftai Labour Camp   Day 313 – Biysk – Siberia

Day 319 – Makarov Camp  Day 320  – Banks of Angara River  Day 350 – Ust Kust – Siberia  Day 380 – Yakutsk – Siberia  Day 410 – Arctic Circle  Day 440 – Trohmovsk – North Pole