One Star Away by Imogene Salva

(For high school students, teachers, and adults) Imogene Salva re-constructs the emotional climate that surrounded the wartime ordeals of her mother, Józefa (Josephine) Nowicka, who was one of almost two million Polish citizens deported by Stalin to the depths of Soviet Russia, Siberia, and Central Asia. This is not an episode that is familiar to most westerners. We are well-versed in the German invasion of Poland and the horrors perpetrated under German occupation but not the parallel invasion of eastern Poland by the Red Army and the subsequent horrors of the Soviet occupation. This thought-provoking true-life story is sure to inspire you, while reminding us that human compassion can be found in the most remote corners of the world.