Lina Vilkas is an average 15 year old girl with a prestigious art school to look forward too, typical teenage problems, and a family who loves and supports her through her everyday life. Her life as she knows it is shattered before her when Soviet secret police unexpectedly barge into their elegant
Lithuanian home one summers night in 1941, leaving nothing but broken shards of her life behind. Lina, her younger brother Jonas, and her head strong mother are separated from their father and deported to
Siberia where they endure hours of grueling work, starvation, disease, and months of bitter cold which tested their physical and emotional strength to the point of self-depletion. Along the way they find people to share their
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The novel initially began in Lithuania in the home of Lina and her family. As the story progresses they are herded into train cars in a scene of panic and chaos. The train cars are described as very filthy, congested, dark, and odorous, causing claustrophobia and possibly dementia. The train cars move north and they finally arrive in Siberia where it is barren, dim, and completely isolated from major cities. They are relocated to a plantation for vegetables where they are worked like cattle and given little to no food. Throughout the story, Lina’s thoughts turn into flashbacks where the setting is constantly changing. After a year goes by they are deported into the Arctic zone of
Siberia, completely isolated from the rest of the world and forced to work in 6 months of darkness and below freezing temperatures. They live in these conditions for 12 years until finally the Soviet’s tyrannical regime comes to an end and Lina and the other survivors are able to return to Lithuania.
Between Shades of Gray is much more than the resistance of a single person. It is more than just telling and reliving all of the roughness and malicious sides of humanity.
However heart wrenching; the story is of finding hope for survival, throughout the biting cold, the screams of pain, the pangs of hunger, and merciless evil. The novel recounts the
In the year 1941, Lithuania was invaded and many Jewish families fled from Lithuania. Margarets family didn't leave because her brother Alik was at a children's holiday camp. Margaret was never sent to a camp, she lived in the ghetto. Margaret's description of the ghetto years as “dreadful”. The people were forced to do hard labour and were deprived of their food.
During the early 20th century in Russia, the country was a tsarist country which was ruled by Tsar Nicholas II. Russia was a vast country who had one of the largest agriculture producer. During that time Russia rely on agricultural as their national income. This peasant country have a population of approximately 127 million people. The rich were very rich and have a comfortable life while the poor was treated unfairly, many people had died because they don’t have enough food.
Lina has little to no understanding of the political climate in her country. Everything political wise was basically hidden from her by the “NKVD” and her mother. If the people of their country found out what was really going on, the community would panic, revolt, and cause tremendous uproars. Lina is a teenager, us teenagers think they know everything, it's just who we are, we can also be very cocky and high headed. I believe Lina’s surprise is a typical response for a teen, one moment she knows the whole world and then she gets a taste of reality and figures out what really is going on.
The book, Between the Shades of Gray, takes place during World War II. The character Lina is arrested and deported by the NKVD following the annexation of Lithuania. She was then forced to provide labor in order to survive the extreme conditions of the Stalin’s camps. Her ability to cope, her relocation, and the death of her mother contributes to her development and survival.
They have a short summer only lasting a few months of the year. It didn’t take them more than 30 minutes sometimes even 20 minutes to build an igloo. They were very skilled hunters and caught things year round even in the harsh winters. Even with harsh conditions they still found ways to survive and adapt.
The subarctics had an interesting way of life. One thing that they did was they used wooden snowshoes to climb mountains, hills, or any steep things.In this generation, most people would were boots, they would use a high tech mobil, or use sticks to help them climb. They had huts and covered them with animal skins to keep them warm and there warm hut home. What other people would do is just move to a warmer place. Its a similarity because the Yukon people used to have a way of living like that.
One of the most important scenes in the story takes place in the vehicle. The grandmother spots an old family graveyard that once belonged to a plantation. She tells the children that the graves
This line was at the very end of the book in the authors note but it summed up the whole idea of the book. The Lithuanians that survived, did because they believed they would. Hope was the only thing that helped them succeed. If they had given up hope their would not be a way they could have gone through the years of neglect and imprisonment. "They chose hope over hate and showed the world that even through the darkest night, there is light." This book showed me that if we have hope, we can
The Coldest Winter Ever is a novel by Sister Souljah. It is about a teenage girl, Winter Santiaga. This novel tells Winter’s story and what happens when fast money and a flashy life style tares her whole world apart. The author Sister Souljah did a great job in depicting the characters in The Coldest Winter Ever. Winter being the main character; is the most depicted out of all the other characters in the novel.
All previous private farmers who had their own land were banished from their homes and sent to Siberia where they lived out the rest of their years. The government then took in all the farmland for themselves and
As the boys attempt to find a way to be rescued, they face the test of enduring life by finding shelter and food for themselves. They try their hardest to maintain their humanity and a civilized order, however it becomes evident that the boys are capable of evil due to their extreme conditions. The boys
The workers in the cities worked for very long hours in awful conditions, which stressed problems in the basic infrastructure of Russia and its underprivileged economic. Russia was in a mess: there was social unrest as workers grew increasingly angry with their atrocious working
they are currently trapped in. They rebelled against all rules and lied to the customs just for the sake
They adapt quickly to use agriculture fields, which is a big reason to why their population is doing so well. During migrations and winter they can mainly be found by wetlands, lakes, ponds, cornfields, and marshes.
In ?The Invalid?s story? this takes place in the late ninth century around winter time. Where our main character travels from Cleveland, Ohio to take his best friend to his parents house in Wisconsin. The whole story takes place in the train where our protagonist meets Thompson. It feels like the train is taking them straight to hell, where they slowly get sick and depressed until they die.