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From:TheBahamasWeekly.com Arts & Culture
Freeport, Grand Bahama - Tuesday evening
December 18th, 2012 the Grand Bahama community came out in full force to
support Marina Gottlieb Sarles as she launched her new book, The Last
Daughter of Prussia. The launch took place at the Canal House at Pelican Bay Hotel. Marina's husband James Sarles was the master of ceremonies and there were opening remarks by Joy Stocke and Kimberley Nagy of Wild River Books, the publisher. The Bahamas Weekly is pleased to provide the formal portion of this special and emotional night in the life of Bahamian author Marina Gottlieb Sarles, also the author of the book, Sand in My Shoes. Our subsequent video will provide an opportunity for you to meet the principals and founders of Wild River Books, Joy Stocke and Kimberley Nagy. The Last Daughter of Prussia is the story of a young aristocratic woman and her Roma gypsy friend during the perilous evacuation of East Prussia at end of World War II. I hope it will be enjoyed as an intimate novel about love and survival. However, it was inspired by many true stories passed down to me by my family and documented in their diaries.
Known as ‘The Great Trek,’ the evacuation of East Prussia claimed the
lives of nearly half a million women, children and old men who were
attempting to escape the Russian Army as it rapidly advanced on Berlin. I
want to give the reader some background on what really happened during
the winter of 1944/45 and in so doing shed light on a dark chapter in
history that has rarely been discussed, yet remains the largest mass
exodus of human beings ever recorded. Manya von Falken is a fictional
character, but she could be any strong-willed daughter of East Prussia
who was swept up in that life-threatening wave of terror and fleeing
refugees.
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