Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein

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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein: 2: Siberia

2: Siberia

BBC Radio 4 - Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein, 2: Siberia

The next in Daniel Finkelstein's story of his parents' devastating experience of WWII.

Daniel's father and grandmother fight for survival as slave labourers in the Siberian wastelands, in the next in this heartrending and powerful family memoir.

Daniel Finkelstein continues the heartrending memoir of his parents' experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during WWII, this week focusing on the story of his father's family at the hands of Stalin.

Daniel's father Ludwik was born in the Polish city of Lwow, now Lviv, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, the family was rounded up by the communists. His grandfather Dolu was arrested and disappeared, while his father and grandmother were sent to Siberia, working as slave labourers on a collective farm. They somehow survived starvation and freezing winters, living in a house they built from cow dung, but always hoping to be reunited with Dolu.

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad is a deeply moving and powerful memoir about persecution, survival, love and loss, man's inhumanity, and the almost unimaginable bravery of two ordinary families. 

Today: after a harrowing journey across the Soviet Union, Daniel's father and grandmother find themselves in the freezing Siberian wastelands, trying to survive as  slave labourers on a collective farm.

Written and read by Daniel Finkelstein
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett

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Daniel Finkelstein reads from the heartrending memoir of his parents' experience of WWII.

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2: Siberia

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