Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Septys

 Human history is full of tragedies perpetrated by one group of humans on another. The justifications are many and all are brutal. This historical fiction is filled with fictional characters who represent the millions of people killed by Stalinist Russians during forty-seven years of "Annexation and Sovietization". The main character from the Baltic State of Lithuania is a young girl whose family because her father is an "educated elite" is rounded up and sent to work camps in Siberia. The descriptions are powerful and filled with details about being transported in cattle cars for weeks, starved and fed bread rations only when they work, and housed in flimsy shelters they have to build for themselves out of discarded materials. However, the human drive to survive despite horrendous suffering also shines through this poignant narrative. Today, our world is still full of inhumanity so this story seems timely, and important to read. Winston Churchill famously remarked, "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".