Back to Contents. Back to Bibliography. Back to Home Page.
This book was first published in 1989.
September, 1944 and the Russians are
advancing eastwards into the Baltic states. This means that the
Petersons family will have to flee to Germany. They cannot stay
in Latvia because Lukas Petersons has been classified by the Russians
as an "Enemy of the People." He is an educated man and
a university professor and he owns land. Not much but enough to
be listed. Lukas has kept in touch with a friend from his university
days. A Professor Zimmerman who lives in Leipzig and it is to
him that the family now hope to go. Their friends, the Jansons,
are travelling with them.
They have left it to the very last minute and they reach the station
only to find that the last train has left early. But they are
allowed to travel with the German supply convoy to the coast.
It is a slow journey by horse drawn wagon. They travel by night
and camp by day because of the air raids but five weeks later
they reach the port of Leipaja. After a long, cold wait on the
docks they are eventually allowed to embark. It is a short journey
but a dangerous one and they survive an attack both by a German
submarine and a fighter plane but, after a day and a night, they
arrive at Gydnia in German occupied Poland. They go to the railway
station where they hope to get on a train to Germany. Then catastrophe
for the Petersons family. The parents, eight-year-old Tomas, and
fourteen-year-old Astra all get on the train -- which moves off.
Then they find that Astra's twin brother, Hugo is not with them.
What has happened to him?
Hugo is very short sighted. Without his glasses he is almost blind.
When queueing to get on the train he finds himself in the middle
of a milling, jostling throng. He is desperately trying to keep
his sister Astra in sight when his glasses are knocked off. He
makes a frantic attempt to retrieve them and is trampled underfoot.
He is helped to his feet and aboard a train. He has a nasty cut
on his head and he is barely conscious. Eventually the train stops
and the people are told to disembark and make their way to a refugee
camp. Two men help Hugo but they are forced to leave him on the
railway embankment. They promise to come back for him.
Hugo is found by a German signallman -- a Herr Schneider -- who
takes him to his home where he is nursed back to health by Frau
Schneider and her daughter Bettina. From this point on the stories
of Hugo and the rest of the Petersons family are told in alternate
chapters. Hugo settles down and makes his home with the Schneiders.
When he is well again he travels to Leipzig and finds the home
of Professor Zimmerman but the house is in ruins. Believing that
his family is dead Hugo returns to the Schneiders.
Meantime the rest of the family are shuttled between various refugee
camps where they endure deprivation and starvation rations. Eventually
Lukas gets travel permits and they arrive in Leipzig only to find
that Professor Zimmerman is dead and his widow cannot help them.
They go to a school in Leipzig which is being used as a refugee
camp. It is a miserable, cold, bleak place and Lukas wants them
to find somewhere in the country as cities are dangerous places
in wartime. They are lucky. They find a farmer who lets them stay
in his barn. Then Leipzig falls to the American First Army and
the Petersons are moved to a refugee transit camp run by the Americans.
News comes of the partitioning of Germany and they learn that
they are in what is to be the Russian section. Lukas goes to the
American commandant and once again they are on the move. They
are shipped out in a train consisting of roofless wagons. They
end up in the medieval town of Esslington in southern Germany.
Gradually things begin to get better but Lukas knows that they
will never be accepted in Germany. They will always be DPs --
Displaced Persons. He is determined to find a home where his family
will be accepted. He writes nearly two thousand letters trying
to find someone who will offer him a job and accommodation. Eventually
he is offered both in Toronto while a similar offer is made to
the Jansons in Boston. They make a final train journey to Hamburg.
The Petersons have been making continuous enquiries about Hugo
but without success but in Hamburg Astra finds her brother again.
Now Hugo has a difficult decision to make. Whether to sail with
his family to Canada or to stay with the Schneiders who have been
so kind to him.
This book shows the misery war causes to many ordinary people
who want nothing more than to get on with their everyday lives.
But it also shows the resilience of human nature. For example,
when they are being transported in the roofless wagons, they find
wood and construct makeshift roofs.
This resilience is particularly brought out by the behaviour of
the two young boys, Tomas Peterson and Zigi Janson. While waiting
on the docks at Gydnia they chase up and down playing tag. While
staying at the farmhouse their main concern is finding glue for
their model aeroplanes and when they are in Esslington they comb
through the American refuse dumps for anything of use.
This book reveals the reality of the utter chaos in Europe in
the years following the Second World War. It is based on the experiences
of the author's own husband and family who left Latvia in 1944
and were refugees until they went to Canada in 1948.
Teenage
This book was first published in 1991.
This is a sequel to Tug of War
which described how the Petersons family were forced to flee from
Latvia at the end of the Second World War, and their experiences
in various refugee camps until they were able to embark on a ship
for Canada and a new life. Lukas, the father, has been promised
a teaching job in Toronto and a Canadian couple, Mr and Mrs Fraser,
are to supply accommodation.
But things do not work out as planned. When they arrive in Toronto
Lukas has a heart attack. He is taken to hospital and recovers
but is told that he can never work again. Meanwhile the Frasers
are about to leave Toronto. Before they go they find alternative
accommodation for the Petersons. It is cramped and uncomfortable
and in a basement. Their landlady does not really want them and
is unkind to them. Part of the arrangement is that Astra is to
help her daughter-in-law. Astra finds herself exploited looking
after three young children. Eventually she flares up and is dismissed.
This means that the family has to find different accommodation.
Which they eventually do.
Now all the members of the family have to find some way of making
money. Hugo finds work on a building site. It is hard and exhausting.
His twin sister Astra gets a tedious job in a dry cleaners and
his mother works as a cleaner. Even twelve-year-old Tomas works
as a delivery boy after school and on Saturdays. And as well as
basic survival they also have adjust to living in a foreign land
and learning about different customs. Tomas even has to learn
his lessons in a foreign language.
But they are all determined that they are not going to live like
this for the rest of their lives. Although tired at the end of
the day Hugo and Astra both force themselves to attend evening
classes. Gradually they settle down and begin to make friends.
And at the end of the book a solution is presented to them --
if they have the courage to take it. They can buy a plot of land
if they are prepared to build a house on it themselves.
This book shows the plight of refugees who have absolutely nothing
trying to make a new life for themselves. But the message is that
courage and resourcefulness will always win through in the end.
A tribute to human resilience.
Back to Contents. Back
to Bibliography. Back to Home
Page.