HOLOCAUST STUDIES / HISTORY

ESCAPE VIA SIBERIA

A Jewish Child's Odyssey of Survival

In Escape via Siberia: A Jewish Child's Odyssey of Survival, Dorit Bader Whiteman presents a compelling story of survival. Through the story of one boy—Eliott "Lonek" Jaroslawicz—she conveys the tale of the dramatic escape of thousands of Polish Jews from the encroaching Nazi menace.

With the crack of a Nazi whip on his father's head, the world that Lonek knows is gone forever. Lonek and his family are forced to join the tide of refugees fleeing eastward. In the course of their flight they are imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp.

A short-lived treaty between the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Soviet Government allows for the miraculous release of approximately one hundred thousand Polish citizens, including Lonek's family. They make their way to Tashkent, only to find that life there is harsh-hunger and sickness abound. When his father falls ill, Lonek's mother is driven to despair and leaves her ten-year-old son on the doorstep of an orphanage.

Lonek is then swept up in another miraculous rescue. He joins the more than 900 Jewish children known as the "Teheran Children," who depart on the only kindertransport that emanates from Russia. After an arduous journey, the children are stranded in Iran due to the vagaries of war and failed diplomacy. Their plight is championed by Henrietta Szold while the leadership of Hadassah relentlessly pressures the American and British governments to assure the children's safe passage. Finally, eight months after they leave Tashkent and after a route that takes them through India and Egypt, Lonek and the other children safely reach Palestine.

In Escape via Siberia, Whiteman has crafted an elegy to the human spirit while emphasizing the tremendous international forces which affected the Polish Jewish escapees' lives and their persistent, heroic struggle in the face of tremendous odds.

"Dorit Whiteman has filled a gap in Holocaust literature with her moving and comprehensive book."
—Gerald Posner, Author of: Mengele—The Complete Story

"This book is unique for its wartime history and geography, with its myriad encampments in the wilderness before the Promised Land and survival.... A valuable piece of Holocaust history."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Unlike most other memoirs, Whiteman does not rely only on her own memory and has conducted significant interviews with others from the group. This, when added to her research in published sources, provides a depth not usually found in this type of book."
—Jewish Book World

Dorit Bader Whiteman, Ph.D., escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna in the late 1930s and arrived in New York, via London, in 1941. After earning her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University, she helped found and became director of the Department of Psychology at the Flushing Hospital Mental Health Clinic. She currently works in private practice in New York City. She is the author of The Uprooted: A Hitler Legacy (1993).

Visit Dr. Whiteman's website at www.doritwhiteman.com.