Donna Solecka Urbikas grew up in the Midwest during the golden years of the American century. But her Polish-born mother and half sister had endured dehumanizing conditions during World War II; as slave laborers in Siberia. War and exile created a profound bond between mother and older daughter; one that Donna would struggle to find with either of them. In 1940; Janina Slarzynska and her five-year-old daughter Mira were taken by Soviet secret police (NKVD) from their small family farm in eastern Poland and sent to Siberia with hundreds of thousands of others. So began their odyssey of hunger; disease; cunning survival; desperate escape across a continent; and new love amidst terrible circumstances. But in the 1950s; baby boomer Donna yearns for a “normal†American family while Janina and Mira are haunted by the past. In this unforgettable memoir; Donna recounts her family history and her own survivor’s story; finally understanding the damaged mother who had saved her sister. Finalist; Best Traditional Non-Fiction Book; Chicago Writers Association
#2755869 in Books 1999-06Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x 6.75 x .75l; .0 #File Name: 0299163245224 pages
Review
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A Truly Scientific and Rational ApproachBy cfeagansI'm using this along with several of the works of Marija Gimbutas (along with many; many more texts and papers!) for a master's thesis I'm working on and I found the chapters in this edited volume to be very insightful and refreshing.There is a tendency; I think; to project modern biases about sex and gender on the prehistoric past that creates a set of assumptions that we have to be careful about. The authors in this volume take many of these assumptions and conclusions to task in a series of rational; scientific arguments.The goddess conclusion might apply to one or more specific cultures; but it can't be applied as a universal in the way that Gimbutas and others hoped. The Gimbutas argument so often seemed to boil down to the sex of a figurine; from which she made the leap that this represented a "goddess." But looking at a figurine from 5;000 to 9;000 years ago and assuming that it is female based on modern ideas of sex and gender is a slippery slope. Obesity; "curves"; hair styles; lack of beards; and even the presence of breasts ("moobs?") cannot objectively be interpreted as female characteristics for cultures that are long-dead. And Gimbutas did this over and over.
