Between Shades Of Gray Character Analysis

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Dustin Morris Between Shades of Gray Sepetys, Ruta Between Shades of Gray depicts the fictional lives of Elena in Lithuania; the mother of Lina and Jonas; portraying the hardships and horrors in their time of imprisonment into the concentration camps during the Soviet Union (USSR) in WWII. Stalin was drafting people who were considered anti-Soviet to be sent to prison, murdered, or deported into slavery in Siberia. Lina is the narrator throughout the novel and an accomplished artist. In the beginning of the story she describes how she and her mother, and brother, were taken brutally by the Soviet Union into a train full of other prisoners who were also abducted. They are sent a prison war camp while enduring the vicious train ride. There were no bathrooms in the ride so they have to endure the filth, and stench marinating in the train; death also filled the air. They…show more content…
Soviet Union leader Stalin is deporting people he believes to be anti-Soviet sending to prison war camps, forcing them into slavery, and/or to be murdered. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, military servicemen, writers, business owners, musicians, artists, and also librarians were all considered enemies and were added to the list for complete genocide or extermination in other words. The first deportations took place on June 14, 1941. In the meantime the USSR wiped out Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia from the map during Stalin’s reign. Between the Soviet and Nazi forces these countries did not exist during the period of the Genocide. People who survived spent ten to fifteen years in Siberia, upon returning in the mid 1950’s, the Lithuanians discovered the Soviets resided in their beloved homes, enjoying all of their belongings, and even stole their identities. The returning deportees were treated as criminals, and were forced to live in restricted areas under constant surveillance by the
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