The Endless Steppe
| Author | Esther Hautzig |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Caroline Binch |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Harper Collins |
Publication date | 1967 |
| Media type | Print Hardcover, Hardback & Paperback |
The Endless Steppe (1968) is a book by Esther Hautzig, describing her and her family's exile to Siberia during World War II.
Summary: In 1941 Esther and her family are arrested by Soviet troops because they are capitalists and are taken away from their home in Vilna, Poland and transported to Siberia in Russia. On arrival, Esther's mother and father are forced to work in a gypsum mine, and Esther and her grandmother must work in the fields. Eventually Esther and her family get a hut of their own, and Esther attends a local school in Rubtsovsk, but they still have to face the cold of the Siberian winter, summer heat, constant hunger, and the conscription of Esther's father into the Red Army. There are some similarities between this work and The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's Diary), as both are non-fiction books dealing with the horror of World War II, each told through the perspective of an adolescent Jewish girl; however, the background of The Endless Steppe is much less well known, and has a different outcome.
References
Further reading
Donald Cameron Watt (1989), How War Came, New York: Pantheon Books.