Our series, History Books, continues with a book about a man who was deported to a Soviet prison camp, a Gulag, before escaping.

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Following our look at last words in the previous episode of History Books, this time we consider the book Two Years in a Gulag by Frank Pleszak.

The book is a personal journey. In the book Frank tries to find out about what happened to his father, somebody who was sent away from his native Poland to one of the toughest of the Gulag Soviet labor camps. That deportation happened following the 1939 invasion of eastern Poland by the USSR after the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

One of the aspects of the book that I found interesting is that it mixes both a personal account with an overview of historical events that I was not always greatly aware of. For example, Frank explains the detail of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of the book and then what happened once they assumed power in Poland.

Now, I hope that you enjoy the audio.