Who Lived, Who Died?

Peter Gourevitch's riveting account of his family's experience with two totalitarian regimes is part detective story, part political thriller, part historical research. All four grandparents were Mcncheviks; two fled the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and made their way to Berlin. Forced to take flight again in 1933, the maternal grandparents sought refuge in France. On the run once more in 1940, they managed to get visas for the United States. The paternal grandfather was killed in...
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Peter Gourevitch's riveting account of his family's experience with two totalitarian regimes is part detective story, part political thriller, part historical research. All four grandparents were Mcncheviks; two fled the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and made their way to Berlin. Forced to take flight again in 1933, the maternal grandparents sought refuge in France. On the run once more in 1940, they managed to get visas for the United States. The paternal grandfather was killed in the Purge; the grandmother survived and in the 1960s found their son. As a teenager he had been sent to Berlin. Then, he too, escaped first to Paris and then to the United States. Gourevitch grew up with a Family Legend and now as an older scholar, he has set out to see how that fits with the historical record. He takes the reader along with him on this journey of discovery-a journey made vivid and graphic by his presence in the text.Judith M. Hughes, Professor Emerita of History, University of California, San Diego