When God Looked the Other Way

A personal history of one family’s hardships at the dawn of World War II, when thousands of Poles were forced into exile by the Soviet government.

“A finely wrought memoir of loss and survival…. With this work, Adamczyk has brought illumination and honor to the families of the thousands who suffered the same terrible fate.”—Publishers Weekly

In the shadow of the Holocaust, the Soviet Union’s quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk’s gripping memoir, When God Looked the Other Way, gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism.

Adamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Serbia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, in which tens of thousands of Polish officers were slain at the hands of the Soviet secret police. The family’s separation and deportation marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which Adamczyk endured nearly intolerable living conditions, meager food rations, and life-threatening epidemics.

A memoir of a childhood spent in unspeakable circumstances, When God Looked the Other Way not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy. Unflinching and poignant, When Good Looked the Other Way stands as a testament of the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of an atrocity yet to receive its historical due.

“Mr. Adamczyk writes heartfelt, straight—forward prose…. This book sheds light on more than one forgotten episode of history.” —New York Sun