What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

can anyone help me? i read a book at the cottage in the summer & i cannot remember the name or the author! it was really good & i would like to recommend it, lol! it was written by a canadian author (i think a robert or richard). it was about a Canadian soldier named tommy something who is trapped behind the lines during WWII. he is sent to a camp in russia & escapes & is hidden by a russian girl with whom he falls in love. this doesn't end well & the finale of the book is his life once he returns to Canada after the war. does this sound familiar to anyone?

I found this list that might be helpful Vicki:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5...

This book sounds really interesting and I wouldn't mind reading it myself. Someone else might've heard of your book so give it a little time. Good luck finding your book :D

Vicki, please provide plot details (no spoilers) and the genre of the book you’re looking for in the Topic header, not something vague like "Help! can't remember this book". Someone is more likely to recognize your book.

Tell us what year you read the book. You can also mention when you think the book was published.

Was this a YA book or more aimed at adults?

it was an adult book - i have tried googling it but no luck.

Laurie wrote: "I found this list that might be helpful Vicki:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5...

This book sounds really interesting and I wouldn't mind reading it myself. Someon..."

Thanks Laurie, i will keep googling it, i did have the info written down somewhere, maybe it will fall into my lap! lol

Vicki, I added a plot description to your topic header. Feel free to edit it.

Did you read this book in the summer of 2016?

Sorry, I am just curious... How he ends up behind enemy lines (and when) and why he is taken all the way to Russia, I presume by Germans?

Kris wrote: "Vicki, I added a plot description to your topic header. Feel free to edit it.

Did you read this book in the summer of 2016?"

yes, i just read it & i did check to see if the author had other books but could find none. he must be a very new author perhaps? and of course now i have lost his name!

Tytti wrote: "Sorry, I am just curious... How he ends up behind enemy lines (and when) and why he is taken all the way to Russia, I presume by Germans?"

i think that happened quite often if you were separated from your unit. he is picked up by the russians who assume he is a spy.

Vicki wrote: "i think that happened quite often if you were separated from your unit. he is picked up by the russians who assume he is a spy."

I guess it might but usually it happens when troops are retreating, not when they are attacking. More often they go there deliberately.

Sorry, I just can't think of a place where Canadian troops and the Red Army would have been so close to each other (and still have enemy lines between them), unless of course it was the final days of the war but.. And sure, Stalin was paranoid but still, they were on the same side, so... It just doesn't make sense to me.

There are some stories like that but none I know has a Canadian protagonist.

Tytti wrote: "Sorry, I just can't think of a place where Canadian troops and the Red Army would have been so close to each other (and still have enemy lines between them)...And sure, Stalin was paranoid but still, they were on the same side"

That's what I was thinking, too. Vicki, how sure are you that he ended up in Russia? Might it have been Germany, or Poland?

Is it fiction or nonfiction?

I don't think we will ever know this one.

Moved to the "Now we'll never know" folder.

Tytti wrote: "Vicki wrote: "i think that happened quite often if you were separated from your unit. he is picked up by the russians who assume he is a spy."

I guess it might but usually it happens when troops a..."

Hi Tytti, I recently read about POW American soldiers in the German stalags that were captured by the Russians during the final days of the war were not given their freedom but were instead sent to Russian gulags to be worked to death. One managed to escape is the only way this knowledge became known. So the same thing might have happened to the Canadian soldier.
I thought you'd find this interesting. :D

Yeah, I think I have heard about that, there were people from several countries in the Gulag system. One man wrote later in his account that there were 40-50 different nationalities at the same camp with him. It's just that OP didn't mention anything about that possibility.

Maybe she forgot? Anyway, Russia needed men to rebuild their country I suppose so they captured any they could get their hands on.

I don't think that was the reason... They already had their own POWs who were sent straight to the forced labour camps, along with the millions who had been there since the 1930s, and more were deported after the war.

I just added another book about a person who had been in Vorkuta. A funny coincidence that I just was reading more about him (he is mentioned in other books) and it said that when he was living in Tallinn, Estonia, in the 1990's, US officials had asked him about American prisoners who had disappeared.

Russia lost so many men during WWII, around 20 million I once read,, so rebuilding their country without adequate manpower would've been close to impossible.

I also read that the Russian soldiers were told never to surrender as all returning POW's would be sent to the gulag or killed, so unsurprisingly not too many Russians were captured alive - especially since they were threatened with harm being done to their families as well.
Their communist rulers were brutal to put it mildly - no wonder so many civilians were overjoyed when the Germans invaded their towns.

Germany was so short of manpower after the war that they turned to Turkish immigrants to help rebuild their country.

What's the name of the book you're reading about Vorkuta? Maybe someday we will find out what happened to all those American POW's that disappeared.

Sure, they lost a lot, but Stalin had already been killing people for a couple of decades before the war in various ways, so that was nothing new. And actually quite a lot of Soviet soldiers surrendered but many had to be forced to return by the Allies.

Yeah, rebuilding was difficult, especially when 12 % of the population had lost their homes and everything they had and when one has to pay war reparations to the country that started it.

The book I mentioned hasn't been translated to English, it's simply called Vorkuta!.

You are so right about the communists killing people for a couple of decades and it's amazing that the 66 million Christians killed during the Russia Revolution are never mentioned.

So yes, Stalin and the gang were blood thirsty ghouls to be sure.

The victorious allies did make the POWs return to Russia to meet their unhappy fate. Not only that but the Russians that had escaped the Revolution and were living in France were forced to return home to Russia as well. What a hellish scenario!
I mean, things must be pretty bad when you prefer Hitler over Stalin.



In your second paragraph I'm unsure of your meaning - who paid reparations to whom?

Well, Stalin killed communists, too, especially if they belonged to the wrong ethnic group, like mine. Many Soviet citizens who were ethnic Finns changed sides and fought for Finland, many Estonians, too. So yeah, we rather had 200,000 German soldiers in the country fighting on our side than an occupation by the Red Army.

I meant that Finland had to pay (originally) US$ 300,000,000 at 1938 prices to the Soviet Union. Granted it was only after the second war but it wouldn't have happened unless they hadn't started the first one and stolen our land, especially when they kept making new demands and pressuring all throughout the Interim Peace, too. (And actually it was the USSR that started the bombing raids then, too, so...) So Germany was a better choice than fighting another war alone against the Soviet Union. I mean it is a bit too big of an enemy for a nation of 3.7 million, though only about 50 times bigger.

If forced to make a choice between the 2 dictators, I think you made the right choice - the same choice I would've probably made.
They already knew how satanic Stalin was so what did they have to lose with Hitler? Desperate people have to make desperate choices. I agree with your assessment of the USSR 100%.
The USSR won the second WW - not the allies. The communist gained all of Eastern Europe as well as Poland. Didn't the Allies go to war with Hitler because he invaded Poland to begin with?
What happened??? Why was the USSR given possession of Poland in the end if the allies were supposed to be defending Poland from aggression?

Laurie wrote: "Why was the USSR given possession of Poland in the end if the allies were supposed to be defending Poland from aggression?"

Yeah, it didn't help the Poles that they fought on the "right side". We were stubborn and on the "wrong side" but the nation survived. But Allies did win the war. UK was one of the countries that had declared war on Finland and USA supplied the Soviet Union. Our war booty included a lot of stuff "Made in USA". I'm not sure the USSR could have fought that well without it.

The poor Poles couldn't have been in worse shape after the war with their new communist rulers. They chose Stalin over Hitler and they paid a big price.

I'm glad the leftover American contraband was able to help your country :D - there's always a bright side to everything I always say.
I heard that the food product Spam became very popular in Russia and surrounding countries during the war. That stuff sure had a wang to it but it did save a lot of lives.
I'm not so sure England or America came out ahead at the end of the war with the forthcoming cold war awaiting them but Stalin certainly did with all the countries he gained and the reparations you mentioned.

No, they didn't choose Stalin, they just had no choice in the matter.

Laurie wrote: "I'm glad the leftover American contraband was able to help your country"

Well I wouldn't be say that it actually helped that much, maybe some individual soldiers in the heat of the battle, considering that it first had killed thousands of our soldiers and even civilians, especially in the summer of 1944.

Blame the American politicians, the average American did not want to be involved in European wars and still don't.

Laurie wrote: "What happened??? Why was the USSR given possession of Poland in the end if the allies were supposed to be defending Poland from aggression? "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_C...

does a pretty good introductory job explaining this.

Lobstergirl wrote: "Laurie wrote: "What happened??? Why was the USSR given possession of Poland in the end if the allies were supposed to be defending Poland from aggression? "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Con..."

Thanks for the link LG :D
Considering the fact that the USA armed Russia to begin with I don't understand what Roosevelt had to fear from Russia or Stalin.