VERA

VERA by Michael Socha. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780692784747.

What was life like in Ukraine in the early 1900’s when communism took over the country or during World War II when Ukrainians were forcibly taken to Germany as slave labor? This autobiography brings to life the story of one of those people. Veras adversities started at age three when a painful epidemic plagued her village. At the age of six, starvation stalked the village almost claiming her life. As a teenager she endured the chaos of living in a war zone and the German occupation of her land. At the age of sixteen, she was forced to leave home to work in Germany, where the times of rest were few and the labor was rigorous. She endured being arrested and beaten by police. Her first six years after the war were spent in Germany’s Displaced Persons Camps, where she married and bore four children. Notable life difficulties continued after she immigrated to the United States, including the struggles of her travel back to Ukraine to see her family after being gone for thirty-five years, and of her emotional reunion. In the midst of her life struggles and often in hours of desperation, however, angels (as she calls them) were sent to rescue her. In this story you will enter into the life of a woman with a tenacious spirit, who made the best of her very difficult life. Most of her contemporaries with similar and often more dramatic stories are deceased and their stories are irretrievable. Vera’s story, on the other hand, will live on well past her years.