Through the Burning Steppe - Tapa dura

Elena Kozhina was just eight years old when the Germans laid siege to Leningrad in 1941. She, her mother, her grandmother, and her siblings, along with thousands of other Leningraders, were loaded onto transit trains and evacuated to the heart of the Russian steppe. Her brother did not survive the brutal journey, and her sister and grandmother perished soon after. Elena and her mother were deposited in a completely unfamiliar rural landscape, and made to find their way among the Cossack villages and the encroaching German troops. The fact that they found shelter and struck a truce with their reluctant Cossack hosts is a singular testament to the courage and dignity of Kozhina's mother. That they survived with their hearts, souls and memories intact is a testament to the strength of the bond between mother and daughter, even in the face of the greatest adversity. This memoir tells her story.