Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - , reviewed on 5/9/2017 + 181 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

I was glad to read a survivor story from the point of view of a wealthy Russian family caught up in not just the Communist Revolution, worldwide depression and WWII, but the eventual transport of 2 members of the family to labor camps in Germany.
Although a story that needs to be told by a survivor of circumstances different from most WWII or Holocaust survivor memoirs, the disorganization of the writing is shameful. The two American editors of the childhood pages translated from several languages by the author before her death after over 50 years of marriage to an American did the family no favors in sharing the story the way they did.
In many places one telling of an incident is immediately succeeded on the next page by the same story. It leaves one wondering whether the editing was just that poor or if they meant to publish it that way.
Many helpful resources were added at the back of the book including a family tree, glossary of terms and names, and a chronological timeline. Throughout the book, endnotes are added to clarify discrepancies that seem to appear in the diary translations as well as some historic facts that add to a child's telling of a situation. But none of these save the book's shortcomings. The lack of clarity and out of order telling of some family memories just diminishes the power of Nonna's story.

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