WHY "LAST TRAIN TO FREEDOM?"
August 31st is National WE LOVE MEMOIRS Day.
“For as long as humans have written, there have been memoirs.”
From Julius Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War”—a firsthand account of his experiences fighting the Celtic and Germanic people in Gaul—to Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” a memoir about his life before and during his captivity at Nazi concentration camps, memoirs offer insights into global events and intimate personal stories and experiences from a unique perspective of an individual.
How did I come upon a memoir-writing journey?
Since I was a little girl, I have loved family stories. I was lucky that both my parents enjoyed telling them. My mother’s family was close-knit and complicated, with siblings and cousins (second and third) raised as brothers and sisters; aunts and uncles often played the role of parents to their nieces and nephews, and everyone was in each other’s business. If you watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” you get the idea.
My father, the youngest of thirteen siblings from the age of two, grew up without a father. He remembered sharing a pair of skates and a pair of boots with his older brother during cold Ukrainian winters: each boy came to school in one boot and one skate. As a youngster, I thought this was hilarious, not seeing the feeble existence of his family in this story. My father’s recollection of playing in a youth orchestra, where all the instruments comprised empty vodka bottles filled with water at various levels to create different sounds, was fascinating to hear time and time again.
Then, there were stories about my parents’ lives in the USSR during the Stalin era and WWII. An account of terrible loss and unprecedented survival.
I wish they had left notes and diaries of their experiences. But they didn’t. All I have are the stories they told me, which, over time, had undoubtedly lost some of their perspectives and adopted mine. So, when I repeatedly told my parents and my own stories to our children and later grandchildren, I decided to write them. Frankly, I don’t recall if I told the stories because they asked repeatedly or if I wanted to share them again and again. Probably a little of both.
That’s how the dream of The Last Train to Freedom was born. There was a time between the dream and reality when fear lingered in my stomach, making it challenging to proceed. But, as I often tell my coaching clients, we find courage on the other side of fear. I wanted to get on the other side of my fear badly. So here I am. My memoir is due for release in late 2022. And today, in honor of National WLM Day, I want to share the blurb from the back of the book.
Galina Cherny’s Last Train to Freedom is the riveting true story of her young family’s daring escape from the barbed wire borders of the USSR. It’s a raw tale of growing up in the Soviet Union. And a love story that defies all odds.
Born into a patriotic military family, her existence was constrained by the dull daily grind of the post-Stalin era, magnified by the fact that she was Jewish. Could a chance encounter in her beloved hometown, Kiev, the capital of then-Soviet Ukraine, change everything for the 21-year-old Galina? Is she willing to walk away from her life and never return? Betray her parents? Her country? The choice proves much harder than she ever imagined.
Through Galina, we learn of her family’s harrowing emigrant journey. The struggles, setbacks, and triumphs of starting life over in a foreign land. Will she ever be at home again?
Visit my Author tab to learn more about my memoir-writing journey.