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East of the Storm: Outrunning the Holocaust in Russia

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EAST OF THE STORM recalls a very personal story of one family's flight from Poland as the Germans moved into Lodz,Poland, in 1939. Hanna Pankowsky, a very small, frightened girl, walked away from her beautiful home in Lodz with her mother holding her hand. Thus began their flight from the German occupation of Poland.

Hanna's story is told with honesty and clarity. She never reaches out to the reader for pity. Although her story is one of moral and ethical value, Hanna simply tells her own story of survival--her unique story. During the years that her family traveled from place to place attempting to find a safe home, a home free from prejudice and brutality, she attended schools whenever possible and learned much about diverse cultures and people. She learned four languages out of necessity.

Much is revealed about Hanna and the difficulties of living during WWII through her travels from childhood into adulthood. As others have shared their experiences during this difficult time, she too tells us her story "so that we shall never forget."

This book is an excellent book and really shows what outrunning the holocaust was like. It has excellent descriptions and it tells the story in vivid detail. I have read it two or three times and am going on third. The writing is supurb. I recommend this book for anybody that would like an excellent true survival/historical novel. Thank you for writing this book.

What an absolutely brilliant narrative Hanna Pankowsky relates as she explains the years of hardship and perils she and her family experienced trying to escape the dangers of Nazi Germany. This is truly an "action thriller." The sad fact is the events actually happened and the fear, danger, pain and terror were lived by millions of men, women and children. Mrs. Pankowsky paints images in the reader's mind that are so vivid that the reader can place himself/herself in the action (even to the point of being out of breath trying to hop a train or run in the cold snowy forest!). This book is so well written and in a "first person" voice of history that this book should be in every school library as well as on the suggested reading list for history classes. Oprah needs to make this selection one of her book club favorites! Read it. You won't put it down!

East of the Storm: Outrunning the Holocaust in Russia
By Hanna Davidson Pankowsky

This book takes the reader back to the beginning of World War II. We witness the invasion of Poland through the eyes and ears of a young Jewish girl who, along with her family and the Jewish community in Lodz, are caught up in the middle of a gathering storm which threatens to sweep across Europe and Russia before engulfing the entire world. East of the Storm chronicles the Nazi threat and upheaval in Europe from a personal perspective. Instead of troop movements we learn about the movement of one family as it escapes the Nazi occupation of Poland to the Soviet Union. Fleeing deeper into Russia as the Nazis opened the Eastern front and advanced to Stalingrad, Moscow and Kiev, they were finally forced to seek refuge in the United States as the political situation in Russia took an ominous turn under Stalin in the wake of the German retreat. This is living history, a story of danger, pathos, and the triumph of the human spirit as the Davidsons found deliverance and a better life in America.
Hannah Pankowsky has written a warm, moving account of her life as a refugee and a portrait of courage in the midst of unimaginable hardships and terror. It is an uplifting story, one told with humor and graciousness (in recounting the story of the Soviet repulsion of Nazi forces from Stalingrad she writes: "The heroism and love for Russia displayed by soldiers and civilians alike cannot be denied or ignored. They were defending their country, not Communism.") that reveals an "old world" sensibility. This book is especially recommended for young readers, looking for inspiring stories from WWII other than Anne Frank's Diary. Documenting a period in History that is receding from collective memory at a time when there are fewer and fewer actual survivors of the Holocaust still alive, it is poignant reminder that these terrible events did happen and they should never be forgotten.

Expecting social justice and sanctuary in Stalinist Russia ranged from simple, desperate naivete to a deliberately self-inflicted delusion but some unfortunate souls did just that, only to find their very lives at risk. "East of the Storm: Outrunning the Holocaust in Russia" is the true story of the Pankowsky family's ordeal of escaping their homeland for an uncertain fate in the Soviet Union. Poland quickly fell to Nazi Germany, and was subject to its antisemitic practices almost the same instant. Hanna and her family saw hope in making it to the Soviet-occupied portion of Poland, and took their chances going for it. "East of the Storm" is a tale of bravery and risking it all for just the chance to survive.

Ms. Pankowsky was a ten-year-old girl when German troops invaded her native Poland at the start of World War II. Her family immediately experienced the awful reality of being Jewish under the Nazi regime. They fled to the Soviet Union, where they had to hide their family's past from the repressive communist government. The book is a riveting first-person account of her experiences.

It's a very readable account. The majority of the book deals with her family's time in USSR where they endured great hardship due not only to wartime deprivation, but also because their family background had to be hidden. (Her father was a businessman who fled Russia at the time of the Revolution. Had this become known, they would have been considered 'enemies of the state'.)

The book also briefly covers life in Poland before the war; their escape from Russia; their short-lived return to their hometown in Poland, and how they eventually reached and settled in Mexico City.

I highly recommend this book.

I found the book to be well written. The historical details and personal strength of the writer and her family were a combination that made it hard to put the book down. I would recommend this book to family and friends.

In 1939, the idyllic world of 11-year-old Hanna Davidson, born to a family of artists, professionalsand achievers, was irretrievably shattered by the momentous events of the War. What followed was her journey in the hub and later just ahead of the crest of the Holocaust. It is a tale of courage, resourcefulness and frequent depravation. However, it is also an adventure, providing insight into life in Poland, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere,ending in the haven of the United States.

Hanna does an excellent job describing the horror and sacrifice her family endured as a refuge during WWII. Her prose is honest; her story remarkable.

Read this book!