This story is about my Ukrainian grandparents, who met in Germany during World War Two. Their story is about a love that began during the most devastating and eliminative war in human history. They were both taken from their families and put into slavery in Germany. A vast number of young people were victims of this political tactic against their will. Despite this political agenda, Lina and Peter found each other and found love that would turn separation to togetherness and create a new life in post-war Ukraine.

Lina lived a hard life growing up in Babrichi, Ukraine, where a woman would give birth in the field and wrapped her newborn in a blanket before placing it down and returning to work. But life was about to get harder. In June 1941, the Germans launched their invasion of the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa. Suddenly, a convoy of SS vehicles arrived with flags emblazoned with swastikas snapping in the wind. At first, the villagers were curious about the men in green uniforms who went around yelling, Heil Hitler! They could not prepare themselves for what would happen. Lina and many others were taken from the families and forced into slavery in Germany. But somehow, she was able to find Peter, and they discovered a love that would turn separation into togetherness. Written by Lina and Peters grandaughter, this true story chronicles the atrocities of the Nazis and celebrates how two victims found each other, survived, and built a loving life together in post-war Ukraine.

Presents five memoirs of Jewish women who, in their youth, survived the Holocaust; in each case the role of the family, especially the parent-child relation, was central. Contents:

This companion novel to Skrypuch's Making Bombs for Hitler follows a boy who joins the underground Ukrainian resistance in the fight against Hitler. The Nazis took Luka from his home in Ukraine and forced him into a labor camp. Now, Luka has smuggled himself out -- even though he left behind his dearest friend, Lida. Someday, he vows, he'll find her again.But first, he must survive.Racing through the woods and mountains, Luka evades capture by both Nazis and Soviet agents. Though he finds some allies, he never knows who to trust. As Luka makes difficult choices in order to survive, desperate rescues and guerilla raids put him in the line of fire. Can he persevere long enough to find Lida again or make it back home where his father must be waiting for him?Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, author of Making Bombs for Hitler, delivers another action-packed story, inspired by true events, of daring quests and the crucial decisions we make in the face of war.

A companion to Making Bombs for Hitler and The War Below, this novel follows a Ukrainian girl who was kidnapped as a child to be raised by a Nazi family. Nadia is haunted by World War II. Her memories of the war are messy, coming back to her in pieces and flashes she can't control. Though her adoptive mother says they are safe now, Nadia's flashbacks keep coming.Sometimes she remembers running, hunger, and isolation. But other times she remembers living with a German family, and attending big rallies where she was praised for her light hair and blue eyes. The puzzle pieces don't quite fit together, and Nadia is scared by what might be true. Could she have been raised by Nazis? Were they her real family? What part did she play in the war?What Nadia finally discovers about her own history will shock her. But only when she understands the past can she truly face her future.Inspired by startling true events, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch delivers a gripping and poignant story of one girl's determination to uncover her truth.

In this book, Jean Gros tells his life story from his youth to his release from captivity as a prisoner of war. He was born in 1922 as the child of German-Romanian settlers, under the name Ioan Grosz, in the Romanian Banat. The family lives in the small village of Ivanda near the city of Timisoara, where they run a small farm. In this environment, characterised by simple living conditions, Ioan experiences a carefree and mostly happy childhood. This ends, however, when he begins a butcher's apprenticeship in a neighbouring village. From now on, he has to face the first hardships of life. However, this period of his life is still proceeding along the usual lines for the time and the region. This all changes abruptly when the Third Reich sets out to recruit new soldiers from the ranks of the Romanian Germans. Ioan also gets caught up in the mills of the Nazi war machine, and like most of his compatriots, ends up in the Waffen SS. As the book progresses, it describes his traumatic war experiences and the depriving circumstances under which the missions are carried out. During his sorties he is also wounded several times. Despite all adversity, he tries to maintain contact with his family and childhood sweetheart, but this is not always successful, and the uncertainty about his family's circumstances becomes his constant companion. The war ends for him with another wound and years of imprisonment. The vivid description of the events takes the reader on a journey through Jean's life, which is exemplary for that of many young Romanian-Germans of that era. The reader also gets an impression of the way of life and the further fate of this ethnic community.

This is the first book monograph devoted to Anglophone Ukrainian Canadian children’s historical fiction published between 1991 and 2021. It consists of five chapters offering cross-sectional and interdisciplinary readings of 41 books – novels, novellas, picturebooks, short stories, and a graphic novel. The first three chapters focus on texts about the complex process of becoming Ukrainian Canadian, showcasing the experiences of the first two waves of Ukrainian immigration to Canada, including encounters with Indigenous Peoples and the First World War Internment. The last two chapters are devoted to the significance of the cultural memory of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932-1933, and the Second World War for Ukrainian Canadians. All the chapters demonstrate the entanglements of Ukrainian and Canadian history and point to the role Anglophone children’s literature can play in preventing the symbolical seeds of memory from withering. This volume argues that reading, imagining, and reimagining history can lead to the formation of beyond-textual next-generation memory. Such memory created through reading is multidimensional as it involves the interpretation of both the present and the past by an individual whose reality has been directly or indirectly shaped by the past over which they have no influence. Next-generation memory is of anticipatory character, which means that authors of historical fiction anticipate the readers – both present-day and future – not to have direct links to any witnesses of the events they discuss and to have little knowledge of the transcultural character of the Ukrainian Canadian diaspora.