Esther begins her story on a sunny morning in June 1941, at her spacious home in Vilna, Poland, where she lives with her parents, grandparents, and other relatives. Her life is busy with family activities, school work and lessons in music and dance, but on this particular summer morning, she looks forward to a quiet day of reading and tending her garden. These plans change dramatically when Russian soldiers arrive and arrest her with her parents and paternal grandparents on the charges of being "capitalist enemies of the people."

Separated from Esther's paternal grandfather, the rest of the family is transported from Vilna, Poland, in filthy, crowded railway cattle cars, to the remote Siberian village of Rubtsovsk, where they live from 1941 until 1946.

Initially, the family stays in the barracks outside of town. During the day, Esther works in a potato field, her mother dynamites in a gypsum mine (gypsum...