This book begins in January, 1945 and follows the journeys of eleven civilian women (one was a child, aged 4) into the Soviet Union labour camps, their final release and subsequent life-long issues. Rape, starvation, disease, psychological torture...it's all so familiar to me. My mom too survived this, came to Canada and no one could possibly understand. PTSD wasn't a diagnosis back in the fifties. Nothing in the Canadian education system supported my family's past. I'm so grateful to have found this book. Finally. It was published in 2000. The author comes from the former DDR.