Mama is dead, Baby Emil is dead and Stalin’s new rules are breaking up the family. Papa must stay behind and hide as 12-year-old Katya and her three younger siblings find their way to freedom in East Prussia. With Mama’s sister, Aunt Helena, they board a train and flee for a new home with an aunt and uncle they’ve never met—relatives who don’t want them. But when they reach the border, soldiers won’t let Aunt Helena cross. That forces Katya to take responsibility for her siblings. What will life hold for Katya, her two sisters and her brother when they arrive in East Prussia? How long before Papa can rescue them?
Gabriele Goldstone inherited scattered bits of her mother’s memories, shadowed by the oppression of both Stalin and Hitler. She shaped them into the life of the fictional character Katya Halter. Gabriele travelled to Ukraine and searched through former KGB files to find missing pieces—along with the red stone that symbolizes Katya’s home. Gabriele lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
