Between Shades of Grey
Ruta Sepetys
November 29, 2012
Between Shades of Grey is a novel that takes place in the times
of World War II. This story talks about the great suffering of the time and
unimaginable discrimination. You probably think it is about the holocaust and
the persecution of Jewish people, but this book is about a girl from
the country of Lithuania and her story of deportation and misery. In
the summer of 1941, a 15-year-old, aspiring artist named Lina is excitedly
beginning her summer of a prestigious art school, first dates and
time to enjoy herself. When suddenly there is a knock on her door one night.
The NKVD (Soviet soldiers) breaks down her door, rushes into her home and tells
her to pack her belongings into a suitcase and leave in 10 minutes. Lina has no
idea where she is going or why. Her father has been separated form
her family and sent in an alternate car. She is stuffed into a boxed in wagon
with about 40 other people and shipped away. In the wagon emotions are running
high, no one knows where they are going or why, Lina is silently suffering, a
million thoughts racing through her head. Next they are shipped into train cars
for days on end until they arrive at a labor camp, in Siberia.
Many people die or fall ill of a range of diseases. Despite the odds Lina
fights for her life and the lives of many others, including her own family.
Lina documents this intense struggle of shortage of food,
discrimination, disease and horror through her drawings. She risks her
life to draw the monstrosity of her surroundings. Love is what is keeping them
alive, but is love enough?
A huge reaction that I had to an aspect of the book was the basis
the story was written on. Everything that happened to Lina
actually happened to real people in real life! At the time, people from
the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia were sent into
prisons or labor camps as an act of genocide. The Soviet leader of
the time took all their rights away and took their countries off the maps
completely. They experienced huge acts of violence towards them and
discrimination. The soviets claimed they were criminals to the rest of the
world, but none had actually committed crime. The cruelness of these
camps and prisons can be compared to those of concentration camps that Jewish
people were sent to at the same time in history. I was in shock when I read the
authors note that explained that this abomination occurred in
history and was greatly covered up when the war was lost. Pictures
were burned and culture almost disintegrated. The people of the
Baltic regions rarely discuss these times due to the pain it brings them. The
pain and suffering of the time for people of the Baltic region is one of the world’s
greatest secrets.
One question that I was wondering while reading my way through
this moving tale was, how could I never know about this? Every grade nine students
or teacher, who may read this blog, has heard about the horror of the holocaust
and Hitler's rule. Which is something I believe is essential to
education, but why have we never heard of this suffering of the people from the
Baltic region? I did some extra research on the topic because I was
curious. Founding out that the soviets killed 20 million people was complete
shock to me. I could not believe that I had never heard about this. My question
to you is reader, Are you informed of this terrible time in history? If so, why
do you think the knowledge of these events are so scarce?
I most definitely recommend this book as a compelling read to
anyone who is up for a hidden story of the miraculous human nature
and suffering alike. Everyone should read this book because it tells
such an untold story of love, misery and triumph. As a girl of 14 years of age
(about the same age as Lina) I cannot imagine the distress she must have been
going through and the feeling she constantly had that she was missing
everything that came with being a teenager; Simply because it was taken from
her. This book has some dull stretches of mostly depressing writing,
but that is made up for in the explanations of love within the story.
Sepetys really makes you think about all that you have and all
that you may not know about the world. If you are looking for a light read,
this is not the book for you, but if you’re up for a wonderful, horrible,
miraculous and heart breaking story, pick this book right off the shelf and
start reading.
This is an excellent blog post. To answer your question, I have not heard of this particular event in WWII, but I do know that it is not the only one of its kind. France was actually responsible for rounding up all of the Jews living in Paris at one time and sending them off to concentration camps. The event is known as the Vel d'Hiv round up, and if you ever get a chance, you should read the book "Sarah's Key". It is a fictional novel based on the real events of the round up of the Jews in France. I think countries want to hide these events in their history because they are ashamed of the atrocities that took place on their homeland. It is difficult to admit that something like that was allowed to happen, and I am sure it is even harder to figure out how to deal with it and make up for it after the fact.
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