"Among the great tragedies that befell Poland during World War II was the forced deportation of its citizens by the Soviet Union during the first Soviet occupation of that country between 1939 and 1941." "This is the story of that brutal Soviet ethnic cleansing campaign told in the words of some of the survivors. It is an unforgettable human drama of martyrdom in the Gulag. One witness reports, "A young women who had given birth on a train threw herself and her newborn under the wheels of an approaching train." A member of the Milewski family wrote, "Our suffering is simply indescribable. We have spent weeks now sleeping in lice-infested dirty rags in train stations." The many non-European countries that welcomed and extended aid to the exiles are discussed."--BOOK JACKET.