Karolina Remembers

The Nazi occupations were not the only horrors to fall upon the Polish nation. The Russians invaded from the east leading to the exile of 1,700,000 souls to forced labor camps in the barrens of the Soviet Union. This 135 page narrative, with more than 3 dozen photographs, maps and other documents, is a chronicle of • the difficult but satisfying life of European immigrants in the soft coal region of Somerset county in southwestern Pennsylvania during the 1920’s, • the daily life in the peasant villages of the Galicia region of southeastern Poland during the 1930s, • the invasion from the east by the Soviets and the deportation by cattle car to the far reaches of the Soviet Union, • a year and a half of survival in the forced-labor camps in the Ural Mountains, • the arduous, yearlong journey to freedom including stops in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India, • five years in exile in the Polish settlements in Africa • and , finally, Karolina’s return to America in 1949.