AustLit

'A Migrant's Story From War-Torn Latvia To Australia.

Born in the seaport of Riga, Latvia, Helena Walsh was eight years old when World War II broke out. Her secure childhood came to an abrupt end when her tiny country was caught between the warring Soviet and German empires and suffered the brutal occupation of both. Members of her family were terrorised and tortured, and an officer of the Soviet secret police moved into the family home.

In 1944, she and her mother fled to Germany where they survived the worst of the Allied bombing raids and the cross-fire of the desperate last battles of the war. Her country occupied, her mother dead and the rest of her family missing, Helena Walsh was among the first to flee the wreckage of Europe for Australia, where she faced new challenges building a life in the alien and parochial world of 1950s Canberra.

An almost relentlessly moving story, this is a beautifully written book about coming of age in the worst of times.' (Publisher)