And this is YA/middle grade, so such details might have been glossed over intentionally. She does not specify if they were sent to concentration camps, starved in ghettos, were killed in attacks-but she probably never knew. Her aunts, uncles, cousins, maternal grandmother-all were killed during the war. 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. 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. 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. This story is very much a child's impression.
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