The Forest of Souls - Softcover

My father grew up in the forest of Byelorussia and was taken prisoner by Stalin's army during the first invasion of Poland. He escaped to England where he joined the Polish Free Forces, but he was never able to go home. He suffered from survivor guilt for much of his life, and he used to tell us stories about his childhood home. After his death, I found that he had written some of these down, including this poem about the last time he saw his mother: 1938/ I didn’t see you/ 1939/ Was too late/ Do you remember when/ you came to see me/ standing there on Gorzow Station./ Where is Janek? Did he forgotten to meet me?/ And when I crept behind you/ pick you off the ground/ and twirl. And you pleaded/ Put me down. Put me down Janek./ What all this people will say./ And then you kiss me and ruffle my hair. The character of Marek Lange was inspired by my father, though his story is very different from my father's. I spent some time in Minsk researching the Nazi occupation of Belarus, and found the truly horrific story of that occupation. I have tried to tell something of that story, and its consequences, in this book.