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Podcast: New Books in Eastern European Studies
Episode: Randy Grigsby, "A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019)
Description: In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Europe along with thousands of other refugees. Sent to Siberian slave labor camps in the wildernesses, they suffered brutal cold, famine, and disease. When Germany invaded Russia many refugees were forced out of Siberia to primitive tent camps in Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Polish army-in-exile previously imprisoned by the Soviets. Within weeks the commander of the army, General Wladyslaw Anders, received orders to relocate his army to Iran to train to fight alongside the British in North...