Words on Wednesday: The Night Sky, by Maria Sutton

Blogger's Serendipity

  A few weeks ago, i was most astonished to open an email from a stranger.
  Maria Sutton told me she  had read my profile and wondered if i would be interested in reading the book she had written.


  She wrote of several topics i am passionate about: history, particularly family history, and travel.  Included with the tale is a mystery.

  Well, what was not to like?

The Book

  We corresponded more; i gave her our post office box number, and she ordered a copy of her book, The Night Sky: A Journey from Dachau to Denver and Back, as a gift for me.

Bavaria, W.Germany, 1976
near Dachau/similar landscape

Searching for Dad

  When the book arrived last Thursday, i was very excited.  It is a real page turner - i had it finished by Friday evening.  i am fascinated by Maria's search for her birth father, and the opportunity to learn of a life very different from what i have known.

  It opens with some of  young Maria's  memories as a DP (displaced person) with her family. In one of the early scenes, we learn that the man she has called her father is in fact her stepfather.

Pages from scrapbook
of my 1976 trip to Dachau
region; please click
to enlarge!

Rethinking History

  We think of the Holocaust as affecting only Jews and those who protected them, but Slavs and others were persecuted also. Maria's mother was a young landowner in Ukraine when World War II began.   As a healthy young woman, she was torn from her dying mother and too-young sisters, to be taken by cattle car to the work camp Dachau.

  Maria tells her tale on two timelines, dextrously moving from her own search for clues to  mother's young life.  Transitions are clearly marked with dated section heads.

Breaking Through the Brick Wall

  Geneaologists are familiar with the term "brick wall," referring to a generation where there seems to be dead end, with no more information to be found.  Maria discovered that her husband's family had lots of information on their heritage to pass on to their sons, but everywhere she turned,  Maria, a skilled federal investigator,  found brick walls in searching for her birth father and her mother's family.

  If the world stayed the same, Maria might never have connected with her family.  However, several things, on a large and small scale, did change.
  As years passed, her mother shared more details about her past life.  This opened more avenues to investigate.
  The Iron Curtain fell.
  Biggest of all was the invention of the internet.

  Brick walls crumbled as Maria turned the internet to her advantage, and, finally, hired a retired KGB agent to track down the remaining unfound family member.

Is this Book for You?

  i find i want to write so much more about this book.  It adds greatly to any study of World War II, personalizing it in the way Anne Frank's or Corrrie tenBoom's or your own grandfather's war story does.
  i join with previous reviewers in recommending it to people interested in Ukrainian and Polish history.
   In addition,  i would recommend it as vital reading for anyone who wants to comment on current immigration issues: notice where these people started, and where they are now.  It's not the focus of the story, but it's there for all to see.
   Global history, family history, travel (yes, Maria traveled a lot to find her family), and a genuine mystery too.
  i would've liked to have seen maps, but we know where Poland, Germany, Ukraine are, right?
  Like i said before, what's not to like?

  Disclosure: Maria gave me this copy - thank you, Maria - but i would've liked it anyway. 
   If i had found it.  And i am VERY glad i did!