The Ice Road: An Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom

by Stefan Waydenfeld

Book Overview

In a forgotten chapter of history, 1.5 million Polish civilians-arbitrarily arrested by Stalin as enemies of the people following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939-were deported to slave labor camps throughout the most inhospitable forests and steppes of the Soviet Union. The Ice Road is the gripping story of young Stefan Waydenfeld and his family, deported by cattle car in 1940 to the frozen wastes of the Russian arctic north.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1607720027
• ISBN13: 9781607720027
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Aquila Polonica
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A Polish Jew Deported into the Interior of the USSR in 1940

The author of this book grew up in pre-WWII Poland. He came from a well-to-do, assimilated Jewish family, who had Polonized their name (from Weidenfeld to Wajdenfeld (p. 357); subsequently Anglicized to Waydenfeld.) In common with many assimilated Polish Jews, the Waydenfelds were atheists. (p. 404, 406). [This recounts Cardinal Hlond's much-maligned 1936 "Jews are freethinkers" statement.] Waydenfeld describes the Polish preparations for war and the savagery of the 1939 German attack. In common with many other authors, he describes a personal experience in which he was part of a fleeing mass of Polish civilians subject to systematic terror bombing and strafing by the Luftwaffe. (pp. 26-27). After the attack, he witnessed many people and farm animals wounded and dead. The Soviets conquered eastern Poland. Jewish-Soviet collaboration followed. Waydenfeld describes Jews as forming the majority of a local-town crowd cheering the arriving Red Army (p. 36), as well as the fact that 2 of 3 of the NKVD officers later interrogating him were Jewish. (p. 69). In 1940, Waydenfeld's family was among those deported into the interior of the USSR. He describes the deportation train as consisting of 40 wagons that each held 40 people. (p. 83). Not mentioned is the fact that the 40-per-wagon figure supports the traditionally-cited number of well over a million Poles deported into the USSR in 1939-1941, not the few hundred thousand cited by revisionists. Waydenfeld ended up in northern Russia, near the Dvina River. He provides details of the grueling life there, notably the bitter winters. After the "amnesty" of Poles in the wake of the unexpected Nazi German attack on its erstwhile Soviet Communist ally, Waydenfeld traveled south. The mortality rate of the Poles remained high. The author comments: "In 1942, before the advent of antibiotics, the mortality rate for typhus was between fifty and sixty percent." (p. 327). The author realizes that the "amnesty" left as many as a million Polish deportees still within the USSR. (p. 353). For the dead, there was no amnesty. Among the victims at Katyn, for example, was Waydenfeld's Uncle Adam. (p. 176). The Soviets wanted the Polish citizens of Jewish, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian nationality to remain behind as Soviet citizens. (p. 358). Not mentioned is the fact that this was a telltale sign of the permanence of the imperial Soviet claim to Poland's Kresy (eastern half), a claim that became fully realized after the 1943 Teheran betrayal of Poland. Waydenfeld found himself in Yangi-Yul (p. 353), a gathering point for the "amnestied" Poles. [My mother, aunt, and grandmother were also there.] In this southern part of the USSR, the locals were descendants of the Tatars, not Slavs. They understood Poles only as citizens of Lekhistan (the ancient Tatar and Turkish name for Poland, which alluded to Lech, the legendary founder of Poland.). (p. 300). This work has many aids for the reader who is not familiar with t

Couldn't put it down

Now, I never would have dreamed that a book about World War II would be so compelling, but it was. Stephan's story - the story of a boy from a middle class neighborhood, fortunate enough to stay with his parents for the entire ordeal, finds himself shipped to Siberia and other points unknown. Young and healthy, he adapts to the most amazing conditions, including working on the Ice Road in 40 degrees below zero, logging in 6 feet of snow, riding bareback horses through the night. While his parents are miserable in detention with him, he's having the adventure of his life. He learns to adapt and even flourish in the crazy and changing conditions, a true testament to the resilience of youth. Thanks to the fact that Stephan is blessed with a great memory, we are treated to a well painted picture of his life during the war. His age group is almost gone, but thanks to him, it will not be forgotten.

An Historic Account of a Family's Survival During WWII

"The Ice Road" is an historical account of the exploits of a Polish family during World War II, who among thousands of others on the Russian side of the Polish-Russian border, following the German invasion of Poland, were rounded-up in the middle of the night and sent deep into Siberia. There, they found themselves dropped-off in a primitive lumber camp in a forest clearing on the bank of the Uftyuga River called, Kvasha. At their arrival they were told, "here you shall live". It was a life-sentence to a Soviet slave labor camp from which no one had ever returned. Reading "The Ice Road" was as anticipatory as reading a good novel. The book, however, is not a novel at all, but rather a documentary. Most history is dry, telling the reader what happened to thousands of people, where it happened, why and when. The reader knows what happened to everybody, but doesn't know what happened to anybody. He gets a full view of the forest, but no one tree is significant. This account is a powerful zoom into the forest to look closely at one family. The reader knows specifically what happened to them, their feelings at the time, their relationships to each other, to others and others relationships to them. The reader is able to actually know them. This is made possible by Stefan Waydenfeld's descriptively detailed accounts of events within their contexts. The book is appropriately written in the first person. Dr. Waydenfeld is a witness. Here is his captivating testimony.

Fascinating, little-known history of WWII

I was fortunate enough to be the proofreader for this book before it was published in the United States. I consider myself well-read on WWII history in Eastern Europe, but I had never learned much about the fate of the people sent off to Siberia and then condemned to wander the Soviet hinterlands after they were released from the camps -- unable to return home and unwanted everywhere. Through an extraordinary combination of luck, fortitude, and quick wits, the Waydenfeld family survives the loss their home, their livelihood, and their country. They suffer hunger, cold, illness - you name it. Their journey takes them from Warsaw to Siberia and even to Samarkand and Persia. But through it all they stick together and eventually rebuild their lives. It is a fascinating, engrossing adventure and I wished it were much longer.

A Masterpiece !

Stefan Waydenfeld's memoir is an outstanding contribution to World War II history. Originally published in Britain, in a small press run, THE ICE ROAD received outstanding reviews (including THE FINANCIAL TIMES) before disappearing from the market. It will be hard for the reader to put this book down. Told without rancor, with smooth-flowing detail, this is also a story about coming of age, albeit in a world surrounded by tragedy. Stefan Weidenfeld was one of the lucky ones - tens of thousands of Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet hinterlands, never to emerge and becoming unknown and ephemeral footnotes to history. This book is a monument to all of those who rode the freight cars East into oblivion. Hopefully, this brilliant book will finally receive the attention it deserves. George F Cholewczynski