The Will to Live

A German Family's Flight from Soviet Rule

This book is a true story of a German family, a mother, grand mother and four daughters, fleeing from the approaching Russian Red Army and from Polish men who took over their home, land and property during World War II. Having lost all their rights, the women tell of their sudden homelessness, hunger, torture, and forced labor, long after the war was over. Their strong will and invincible courage to live under treacherous conditions renews faith in the human spirit to overcome inhumanity. This book contains only one of the stories of fifteen million German civilians who were dispossessed and expelled from their homes during one of the largest forced mass migrations of the twentieth century.