Without Vodka: Adventures in Wartime Russia
A true life adventure story that reads like a novel.

by Aleksander Topolski 

A recent book that will be of interest to readers of Polish Spirit.

From Booklist
The refugee literature of World War II benefits with Topolski's contribution, a striking recollection of three years in the gulag. His narrative's outstanding quality is the spare, sharply drawn descriptions of the characters surrounding him, whether benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent. A 16-year-old plane spotter when Poland was partitioned in 1939, Topolski was swept into the stream of thousands of Polish ex-military people deported to the USSR. Teenagers like Topolski deemed too young to be murdered, as about 15,000 Polish officers were on Stalin's direct order, were force-worked on starvation rations--and indeed unrelenting hunger and the perpetual obsession with food unifies the narrative. In league with a shifting constellation of fellow unfortunates, he schemed daily for anything edible, episodes that buttressed his optimism that he would make it through that day, and the next, until fortune changed. The wheel turned with the release of the Poles to form a new army, to reach the Central Asia training bases in which Topolski persevered through the adversity of no papers, no money, and no friends. An amazing odyssey vividly remembered. 

Gilbert Taylor
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