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Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea is the first volume of a trilogy entitled The Journey. This volume deals with a boy’s perception of life and the drama evolving around him. Although born in Germany shortly before Hitler’s rise to power, he immigrates with his family to Poland as a small child. He is then trapped in Poland by the Nazi invasion in 1939. After surviving the siege of Lwow that ultimately falls to the Soviet rule, he ends up, at the age of twelve, in a Soviet Gulag. As seen through the critical eye of a thirteen-year-old boy, the story describes the Nazi attack on Poland, the occupation of Lwow by the Soviets, his transport through Russia in cattle cars and barges, his arrival at the Soviet Gulag, and his journey after liberation. From the labor camp, he treks through the Volga River, Caspian Sea, and the deserts of central Asia to Alma Ata. The adventures in Alma Ata include two close brushes with death, once from starvation and once as a result of a knife attack. These years are shadowed by his own self-exploration and awakening as a maturing teenager. The conditions in wartime Alma Ata, the drive for acquiring education and the longing to find a way back to Europe are discussed in depth. Upon return to Europe, specifically to Poland he finds death and destruction left by the Germans as well as hostility of the native non Jewish population. He and his family cross the borders to the west illegally and ultimately end up in a D.P. (Displaced Persons) camp in Germany. There he is able to gain admission to a medical school where he studies while waiting for a visa to the USA. The volume ends with his arrival in Manhattan.
