Esther HautzigReviews

"And I think that someplace inside of me there was something else -- some little pleasurable pride that the little rich girl of Vilna had endured poverty just as well as anyone else."

The Endless Steppe is a true story, a memoir about young Esther Hautzig and her immediate family living in exile on the steppes of Siberia during WWII. During the war, life was comfy and privileged in Poland until Esther and her family were arrested by the Soviet government, accused of being "capitalists," -- what a crime! It took two months by crowded cattle car to arrive in Siberia, where they were assigned to hard labor camps and had little access to food or clothing to sustain themselves through winter.
However, thanks to the intervention of Britain, Esther's family was released from their initial assignments and permitted to live in a village where they shared a home with other poor villagers. Esther's parents found menial work in order to survive, and Esther was allowed to go to school.

For the next five years, Esther grew up assimilating to the Russian language, the culture, and Soviet nationalism. She made friends and even had a crush. Life was typical for this young teenager; all she desired was to be liked by others and to make friendships. Absolute poverty and near starvation could not suppress her coming-of-age experience. Even a lack of school books and supplies did not prevent her from studying, learning, and excelling.

When Esther's father was ordered to the front lines of Russia, Esther, her mother, and grandmother had to be extra resourceful to find food. Esther did her part and learned how to sew to make clothes for others in exchange for milk and potatoes. She also collected food that fell from passing trains, which she did apprehensively because she believed it was theft.

At the end of the war, Esther's father returned to Poland, and he wrote to his wife to come home. Esther protested because she felt connected to the steppe -- she had fallen in love with it.

"I had come to love the steppe, the huge space, and the solitude. Living in the crowded little huts, the steepe had become the place where a person could think her thoughts, sort out her feelings, and do her dreaming."

But obviously, she must return to Poland. Unfortunately, someone else was living in their home now, and all of their belongings were gone, including the photo albums that Esther had wanted to take when they were arrested. It was a "crushing blow," Esther remembers, that nothing of their past remained.

"And then came the most terrible news of all. It came from survivors of the concentration camps,...all the members of my father's family -- not one of them had survived the German massacre of the Jews. Of my mother's family...My mother's brother, sister, her mother, her aunts and uncles, my beloved cousins, all were dead."

Here they discovered that their own deportation to Siberia had saved their lives. "Hunger, cold, and misery were nothing; life had been granted" to them. They thanked God.

* * *

I am thankful to have found this little gem because it is a history I knew nothing about. Esther was just a sweet girl full of love for family with an encouraging and joyful spirit. Under such hardship, she rose to the occasion, demonstrating resourcefulness, perseverance, and courage.

It was only after an American presidential candidate had encouraged Esther to write about her personal experiences that she did so. She wrote this autobiographical story as if she were that young girl reliving her days in Siberia again, though over twenty years had passed. Now, gratefully, we have her story forever.

Redeemed Reader Review https://redeemedreader.com/2014/03/ukraine-lessons-in-liberty-and-compassion-pt-...

I read this many years ago as a young girl and loved it. An interesting and little known/part of history. Very good for young readers to expand their view of the world.

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This story is very much a child's impression. Her parents and grandmother hid much from her (which she does recognize as an adult)--the hunger, cold, school, moving, close quarters, outgrown shoes--are all just part of this weird normal for Esther, exiled with her family in Siberia during WW2. I can only imagine what the physically demanding jobs, cold, hunger, need for better housing, and their daughter and mother suffering did to their thoughts. As well as worry about the family members left in Vilna.

When Russia sends the family back to Poland after the war, they learn that they--who endured 4 years exiled as Jewish capitalists--are some of the few Polish Jews who survived. Her aunts, uncles, cousins, maternal grandmother--all were killed during the war. She does not specify if they were sent to concentration camps, starved in ghettos, were killed in attacks--but she probably never knew. And this is YA/middle grade, so such details might have been glossed over intentionally.

A Charlotte Zolotow book

This is a fairly easy read aimed at middle schoolers. I didn't find it to be overly graphic, and I think most younger readers could handle it. After having read so many brutal accounts of life under Communism, myself, this one actually seemed a bit tame. However, the author captures the voice of a young girl perfectly, and I came to care about her and her family as they faced treacherous circumstances living in Siberia for the unpardonable crime of practicing capitalism.

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The many different worlds that exist on this earth are incredible. The mechanical terror of war and empire is stunningly told through the memoirs of a young girl's irregular life.

This memoir of a Polish girl and her family in exile in Siberia during WWII is a well-told reminder of the horrors visited upon the Jews who didn't experience Nazi concentration camps. Along with the narrator, we witness the deprivation, the cold, & the humiliation of a family who struggle and survive.

This memoir of a Polish girl and her family in exile in Siberia during WWII is a well-told reminder of the horrors visited upon the Jews who didn't experience Nazi concentration camps. Along with the narrator, we witness the deprivation, the cold, & the humiliation of a family who struggle and survive.

This is a very interesting story about a young girl and her family getting arrested and exile to Siberia, and their experience in working in labor camps. The book goes in depth about her experiences working and how hope kept her and her family alive. This would be a great book to use when talking about world war two. This gives students perspectives from people who suffered and survived during this time.

I'm not sure where or when we collected this book, but I'm glad we did.

It's one of those wonderful "little" books that imparts an important lesson without hammering you over the head. No great drams, just some too easily forgotten truth.

How can we be "good"? By simply giving of ourselves.

Is this meant to be a book for adults or for children? It really doesn't matter -- its a lesson that we need to learn and relearn all our lives½

Esther Hautzig's recounting of how her family in Vilna, Poland, was sent by the Russians to Siberia because they were seen as "enemies of the people." Her mother thinks she is saving her brother when he comes to their house as they are being arrested, but he does not escape the Holocaust. . At the end of the book there is a brief explanation of how the book came to be written and followed by a brief biography of the author. Ms. Hautzig also wrote A Gift for Mama, a charming family story about life in Vilna before the Holocaust, a collection of I.L. Peretz stories which she translated, and many more books.

PFL

What ages would I recommend it too? Twelve and up.

Length? Most of a day.

Characters? Memorable, several characters.

Setting? Real world. World War 2 Poland and Russia.

Written approximately? 1968.

Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? Ready to read more.

Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should cover? A little clarification on the grandmothers at the beginning. First chapter was slightly confusing.

Short storyline: A young girl and her parents and grandparents are deported from Poland to Russia during World War 2.

Notes for the reader: I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It delved so deep into the character, who wasn't afraid to have emotions and think before she acted. Then, I looked at the date it was written. 1968. Today, no writer would get past a beta reader with so well written a novel! They'd be told to cut the emotion and add commotion. Not to mention a million other things that would destroy the story.

3.5 stars. During WWII, 10-year old Esther and her family, Polish Jews, are arrested and taken by cattle car with other families to remote Siberia. They are exiled here for the duration of the war and this book tells their story. They live in poverty and often don't know if they'll have any food for their next meal, but Esther actually begins to enjoy her life in remote rural Siberia.

I liked it. I didn't know that people were sent to Siberia in exile during the war. It's a bit of a different type of holocaust story because of where it takes place and what happens to Esther and her family.

I found a copy of this book on the street in my neighborhood, and when I picked it up I remembered I'd read it in my childhood. Some of the episodes came back to me vividly: the men who got drunk off cologne, the peasants who never took money without throwing the promised food through the train windows, the disappearing/stolen food at the first hut in Siberia.

I think this is a great book, especially for kids, because it's not the typical story of what happened to Jews during WWII, but a much lesser-known (at least to me) experience. I also like it because it's not unrelentingly horrible: much of the family survives, including all the main characters, and throughout the story there are people who treat them relatively well to counterbalance the really awful ones. There are minor joys, like trading at the market. The writing is descriptive and gripping.

When I asked the author, Esther Hautzig, what was meant by "translated and adapted," she explained to me that she made the stories longer, not shorter, so to provide English readers with the background to understand the stories.

Great introduction and translation of great stories. I've read them to older elementary school age children and the stories kept their interest.

There are ten stories, some of them are available as picture books.½

I've just about given up on this after numerous false starts. It seems so dreary and tedious. FWIW, I hated Anne Frank, so I suspect this will never be a favorite.

Exceptional memoir!

The story is about a young girl and her family getting arrested and exile to Siberia, and their experience in working in labor camps. The book goes in depth about her experiences working and how hope kept her and her family alive. This would be a great book to use when talking about world war two. This gives students perspectives from people who suffered and survived during this time.

Contents: Gifts for Mothers, Grandmothers...; Gifts for Fathers, Grandfathers...; Gifts for the whole family; Gifts to eat

Written so children can use book

When my children (or I) get to whining … “ it's so hot” … “ewww, that's not what I want for dinner” … I always think of these people and what they went through at the hands of other human beings – packed into cattle cars and left standing on tracks in the summer heat, perishing of thirst, freezing in the cold Siberia north with inadequate clothing and overwork, digging through the snow trying to find anything to sustain their bodies.

Esther was a happy young girl in Poland, when her world was changed. Her father had a business in Vilna, Poland and the whole extended family lived together in a nice, rambling home surrounding a garden which her grandfather tends meticulously.

In 1940 the Russians, who were then allied with Germany, occupied Vilna. They confiscated the family business and our property, but did not evict us from our house, our garden. … My world was still intact and I had not the slightest premonition that it was about to end.

Until the day the soldiers broke into their home. “… you are capitalists and therefore enemies of the people … you are to be sent to another part of our great and mighty country…”

The flatness of this land was awesome. There wasn’t a hill in sight; it was an enormous, unrippled sea of parched and lifeless grass. “Tata, why is the earth so flat here?” “These must be steppes, Esther.” “Steppes? But steppes are in Siberia.” “This is Siberia,” he said quietly.

Although Esther tells her story in a matter-of-fact way, it is heart-wrenching to picture what her family went through trying to survive. I found this book to have even more impact than The Diary of Anne Frank. (4.2 stars)