A baby boomer, I grew up in Florida in the 1950’s-1960’s. My knowledge of WWII was formed by Hollywood movies. Although I studied the Holocaust in college, I had never actually met a survivor until, after graduating from law school, I met Lea Weingel in 1976. With great reluctance, she agreed, after many requests on my part, to tell me the story of her life during the war.

Lea had grown up in the small village of Talsi, Latvia, and was living in Latvia when the Germans invaded that country. Barely out of her teens, she fled with just the clothes on her back, leaving behind her parents, who were murdered by the Nazis. Alone, without money or help, she somehow survived the war years in Stalinist Russia. Her journey took her across the vast lands of Soviet Russia to Tashkent and Samarkand, All the while, she had to find a way to overcome her grief over the loss of her parents, her world. Even more admirable was Lea’s decision to escape from Stalinist Russia, risking imprisonment in the gulag or death to get out.

Hers was a story of courage that was so moving that I knew I had to use it as the basis for a novel. I was astonished by her riveting account. For me, it was an incredible adventure. For her, however, it was a return to the most painful years of her life.

Lea passed away before I could complete the novel. But even now, her voice lives on in my memory, calling me back to a small village in Latvia, and a beautiful cloudless day in June, 1941, when the sound of artillery fire ended the life she had always known, and sent her on her remarkable journey.

I hope I have done her story justice.

Gary Fidel