Ester and Ruzya Quotes

“The Soviet system aimed to strip its subjects of the ability to choose. The course of history was preordained, and so was the course of human life. Any Soviet citizen who sought to control his own destiny came up against trade-offs. .... Most Soviet citizens, I think, never questioned this system or their own role in it.”
― Masha Gessen, Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace

“...the morning was sunny, and the sidewalk under my silly shoes was dry and dusty; the dust rose with the warm air, and I felt the smell. I was home. The problem was, I had spent ten years trying to convince myself - and everyone else - that this was not my home. A country that had treated us so badly could lay no clam to that title”
― Masha Gessen, Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace