Dancing Under the Red Star by Karl Tobien

While I was browsing at the bookstore, I came across a title that piqued my interest: Dancing Under the Red Star by Karl Tobien. I've been reading about Stalin in my history class, and I thought maybe this book would give me a little more insight into the lives of the people who actually had to live under Stalin's reign. With the description, "The Extraordinary Story of Margaret Werner, the Only American Woman to Survive Stalin's Gulag," this book had to be good.

Barnes and Noble's website says this:

Between 1930 and 1932, Henry Ford sent 450 of his Detroit employees plus their families to live in Gorky, Russia, to operate a new manufacturing facility. This is the true story of one of those families–Carl and Elisabeth Werner and their young daughter Margaret–and their terrifying life in Russia under brutal dictator Joseph Stalin.

Margaret was seventeen when her father was arrested on trumped-up charges of treason. Heartbroken and afraid, she and her mother were left to withstand the hardships of life under the oppressive Soviet state, an existence marked by poverty, starvation, and fear. Refusing to comply with the Socialist agenda, Margaret was ultimately sentenced to ten years of hard labor in Stalin’s Gulag.

Filth, malnutrition, and despair accompanied merciless physical labor. Yet in the midst of inhumane conditions came glimpses of hope and love as Margaret came to realize her dependence upon “the grace, favor, and protection of an unseen God.”

In all, it would be thirty long years before Margaret returned to kiss the ground of home. Of all the Americans who made this virtually unknown journey–ultimately spending years in Siberian death camps–Margaret Werner was the only woman who lived to tell about it.

Written by her son, Karl Tobien, Dancing Under the Red Star is Margaret’s unforgettable true story: an inspiring chronicle of faith, defiance, and personal triumph.

This story is fascinating, and Margaret's account of her father's capture, her own exile, and growing faith is encouraging. At times I put the book down, not believing that this could have happened to such innocent people. But the story's depth and insight forced me to continue until I had devoured every last paragraph.
This true story is encouraging, inspiring, heart breaking, and intense. It is the story of a young girl growing into womanhood, a doubter growing in faith. Reading this book is a unique way to learn about history.