Sarah McAllister
Between Shades of Gray
Ruta Sepetys
March 22, 2011
Historical Fiction
Lithuania and the Soviet Union/Jewish and Eastern Orthodox/Eastern European
Summary:
“Between Shades of Gray” is a fictional novel with a powerful story. The novel follows a girl named Lina, and her mother and younger brother Jonas. They are living in Soviet-annexed Lithuania, during the midst of World War II, and the gulag system. The Soviets were sending those who fit into the “kulak” category to the gulags at first--these were common criminals, and prospering peasants. However, when Stalin began launching his purges, more than just these people were being sent to the camps. There was a group of people who were known as “political prisoners” during this time, and they included opponents of the communist party, military officers, government officials, the educated, doctors, writers, intellectuals, students, artists, and scientists. Lina and her family fit into the educated group of people, as her father is renowned at one of the universities in Lithuania. Lina herself is a student with a passion and a gift for art, and once her father is separated from the rest of the family, she begins to draw and make a map of everywhere she has been. She does this while on the train to Siberia, in order to send a message to her father. She lives through the horrendous conditions of the Siberian labor camps, losing her mother and father in the process, and nearly losing her brother to scurvy twice. Lina buries her drawings and other artwork that she has created throughout her time in the gulags, in order to document the Soviet genocide of the Baltics.
Reflection Questions:
The novel “Between Shades of Gray” indicates the horrors of the Second World War on those who lived in the Baltic States, but also the strong sense of self that all of those suffering had. At this time, the Soviet Union was beginning to invade the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, attempting to create satellite states with communist governments within the Soviet Union. The NKVD was present in all communities within the country, forcing people to be vigilant with their words, actions, and who they trusted. The climates in these countries were full of paranoia, and those in the upper and middle classes with ties to universities and traditionally bourgeois concepts especially felt this paranoia. As they began to be deported, they suffered through conditions that they had never felt before, and were forced to do labor that they had never experienced. This novel indicates just how horrifying and traumatic these labor camps in Siberia and the Soviet Union were, and the inability of these people to do anything about their conditions and the reasons why they were detained within the camps.
The parallel that became the most evident to me between this novel and my culture is the conditions that those in the Soviet labor camps and those in the American detainee camps in the Southwest are experiencing. The situations in both of these times were not shown to the general public, and especially in America today, there is a disconnect between what is happening in these camps and the knowledge that the public and the government administration has. Those working in the camps directly know of the conditions that those detainees are facing, and are choosing not to present the unsanitary conditions, the lack of materials and supplies for the detainees, and health issues to higher up people within the government or the structure of the camps. In “Between Shades of Gray,” the NKVD officials at Trofimovsk attempt to tell a health inspector with the Soviet government that there are no sick and dying people within the camp, and all is well with those laborers. In reality, it is not, as the inspector was alerted by one of the NKVD guards, Nikolai Kretzsky. This man works to heal some of the sick people, just as those doctors and nurses are currently doing in the United States when it was revealed the conditions of the detaining camps.
I connected mostly with Lina, who is an artist, and who loves her family to such an extent that she would do anything for them. This is not the reason why I connected with her, however. I connected with Lina because we both have the ability to hold our tongues and force ourselves to do something that we may hate or just simply not want to do. Lina and I are also both very opinionated, and have the ability to back ourselves into corners due to our stubborn natures. We both take a while to recognize that we also need to swallow our stubbornness and ask for help from people that we may hate, just simply due to the brevity of a situation.
The central conflict in the novel is the struggle for survival. Lina and her family, and the other political prisoners are struggling to survive in environments where they are not given the proper nutrition, good working conditions, and good sanitary conditions. The conflict is resolved by the sick and weak dying of malnutrition and their illnesses, and the strong surviving to see their liberation from the camps. These conflicts were handled poorly by the NKVD and the Soviet government, but these conditions were also created by them. Stalin had no right to detain innocent people in order to promote his regime and strengthen it, but this is what he chose to do in the Baltic Purge. This is more culturally based, as it is stemming from Stalin’s incessant need to purge all things bourgeoise so that the communist party could flourish within the Soviet Union, but also it is personally based, as Stalin was an extremely paranoid dictator worrying constantly about his hold on power within the Soviet Union.
This experience enlightened me to the horrific conditions within the Soviet Union labor camps, as they are rarely touched upon in history courses, and in the scope of the Second World War. The only camps really talked about are the Nazi concentration camps, as they were the largest network of camps in such a small area, and with extreme death tolls. The conditions that were suffered just in Trofimovsk alone were worse than the conditions suffered in the concentration camps. There may be a theory behind this, as the Soviets were allied with the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and the United States) against the Nazis, Japan, and Italy, and these countries did not want their citizens to know that they were allied with a country that was also committing a mass genocide against its people.
Any instances of stereotyping in the novel come from the NKVD officials running the camp calling the prisoners pigs and trash. The rude words that come out of the mouths of these officials greatly anger those who are living within the camp, and this leads them to hate the officials. This leads to the detainees pilfering the supplies of the NKVD, and actively, yet subtly, working against them to simply survive in the conditions that they had created. These are unique to the camps and this time frame, but variations of these actions were found in the German camps, the Japanese camps, and in the Chinese camps as well.
Between Shades of Gray
Ruta Sepetys
March 22, 2011
Historical Fiction
Lithuania and the Soviet Union/Jewish and Eastern Orthodox/Eastern European
Summary:
“Between Shades of Gray” is a fictional novel with a powerful story. The novel follows a girl named Lina, and her mother and younger brother Jonas. They are living in Soviet-annexed Lithuania, during the midst of World War II, and the gulag system. The Soviets were sending those who fit into the “kulak” category to the gulags at first--these were common criminals, and prospering peasants. However, when Stalin began launching his purges, more than just these people were being sent to the camps. There was a group of people who were known as “political prisoners” during this time, and they included opponents of the communist party, military officers, government officials, the educated, doctors, writers, intellectuals, students, artists, and scientists. Lina and her family fit into the educated group of people, as her father is renowned at one of the universities in Lithuania. Lina herself is a student with a passion and a gift for art, and once her father is separated from the rest of the family, she begins to draw and make a map of everywhere she has been. She does this while on the train to Siberia, in order to send a message to her father. She lives through the horrendous conditions of the Siberian labor camps, losing her mother and father in the process, and nearly losing her brother to scurvy twice. Lina buries her drawings and other artwork that she has created throughout her time in the gulags, in order to document the Soviet genocide of the Baltics.
Reflection Questions:
The novel “Between Shades of Gray” indicates the horrors of the Second World War on those who lived in the Baltic States, but also the strong sense of self that all of those suffering had. At this time, the Soviet Union was beginning to invade the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, attempting to create satellite states with communist governments within the Soviet Union. The NKVD was present in all communities within the country, forcing people to be vigilant with their words, actions, and who they trusted. The climates in these countries were full of paranoia, and those in the upper and middle classes with ties to universities and traditionally bourgeois concepts especially felt this paranoia. As they began to be deported, they suffered through conditions that they had never felt before, and were forced to do labor that they had never experienced. This novel indicates just how horrifying and traumatic these labor camps in Siberia and the Soviet Union were, and the inability of these people to do anything about their conditions and the reasons why they were detained within the camps.
The parallel that became the most evident to me between this novel and my culture is the conditions that those in the Soviet labor camps and those in the American detainee camps in the Southwest are experiencing. The situations in both of these times were not shown to the general public, and especially in America today, there is a disconnect between what is happening in these camps and the knowledge that the public and the government administration has. Those working in the camps directly know of the conditions that those detainees are facing, and are choosing not to present the unsanitary conditions, the lack of materials and supplies for the detainees, and health issues to higher up people within the government or the structure of the camps. In “Between Shades of Gray,” the NKVD officials at Trofimovsk attempt to tell a health inspector with the Soviet government that there are no sick and dying people within the camp, and all is well with those laborers. In reality, it is not, as the inspector was alerted by one of the NKVD guards, Nikolai Kretzsky. This man works to heal some of the sick people, just as those doctors and nurses are currently doing in the United States when it was revealed the conditions of the detaining camps.
I connected mostly with Lina, who is an artist, and who loves her family to such an extent that she would do anything for them. This is not the reason why I connected with her, however. I connected with Lina because we both have the ability to hold our tongues and force ourselves to do something that we may hate or just simply not want to do. Lina and I are also both very opinionated, and have the ability to back ourselves into corners due to our stubborn natures. We both take a while to recognize that we also need to swallow our stubbornness and ask for help from people that we may hate, just simply due to the brevity of a situation.
The central conflict in the novel is the struggle for survival. Lina and her family, and the other political prisoners are struggling to survive in environments where they are not given the proper nutrition, good working conditions, and good sanitary conditions. The conflict is resolved by the sick and weak dying of malnutrition and their illnesses, and the strong surviving to see their liberation from the camps. These conflicts were handled poorly by the NKVD and the Soviet government, but these conditions were also created by them. Stalin had no right to detain innocent people in order to promote his regime and strengthen it, but this is what he chose to do in the Baltic Purge. This is more culturally based, as it is stemming from Stalin’s incessant need to purge all things bourgeoise so that the communist party could flourish within the Soviet Union, but also it is personally based, as Stalin was an extremely paranoid dictator worrying constantly about his hold on power within the Soviet Union.
This experience enlightened me to the horrific conditions within the Soviet Union labor camps, as they are rarely touched upon in history courses, and in the scope of the Second World War. The only camps really talked about are the Nazi concentration camps, as they were the largest network of camps in such a small area, and with extreme death tolls. The conditions that were suffered just in Trofimovsk alone were worse than the conditions suffered in the concentration camps. There may be a theory behind this, as the Soviets were allied with the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and the United States) against the Nazis, Japan, and Italy, and these countries did not want their citizens to know that they were allied with a country that was also committing a mass genocide against its people.
Any instances of stereotyping in the novel come from the NKVD officials running the camp calling the prisoners pigs and trash. The rude words that come out of the mouths of these officials greatly anger those who are living within the camp, and this leads them to hate the officials. This leads to the detainees pilfering the supplies of the NKVD, and actively, yet subtly, working against them to simply survive in the conditions that they had created. These are unique to the camps and this time frame, but variations of these actions were found in the German camps, the Japanese camps, and in the Chinese camps as well.