Krystyna's Story

Bridget Williams Books, 1992. Cover and edition may vary.

Krystyna is one of 732 'Polish children' who survived forced deportation to the Soviet Union and was given a home in New Zealand in 1944. Her remarkable story, a composite portrait drawn from interviews with Polish survivors, begins in a peaceful Polish village and follows her family's harrowing journey to a labour camp in Siberia, the terrible flight to freedom, and Krystyna's lonely voyage to a safe refuge in New Zealand.

This is a beautifully evoked account of a child's journey through Europe at war, and a young woman's bewildering encounter with rural New Zealand.