Luba Komar

Scratches on a Prison Wall: a Wartime Memoir Luba Komar

"In this gripping memoir of a young Ukrainian woman's encounter with Communism and Nazism, Luba Komar experiences imprisonment, torture, death row, violence, escape, resistance, and, finally, flight to the West. Throughout, Luba retains her dignity and manifests a quiet heroism-convincingly demonstrating that totalitarianism is ultimately powerless in the face of individuals with the spiritual courage to speak the truth."
-Alexander J. Motyl, Rutgers University-Newark,
Author of Who Killed Andrei Warhol

Ukraine is suffering under Soviet domination in 1940 as World War II begins. Luba Komar, a politically active student at a Ukrainian university, finds herself whisked away in the middle of the night by the Soviet Secret Police. She is tortured, imprisoned and then sentenced to death in a secret Soviet trial.

Fortunately, her death sentence is commuted to exile. With other prisoners, she's loaded onto a train headed to the dreaded Siberian concentration camps.

Luckily, Luba never reaches Siberia. As Nazi bombers approach overhead, the Soviets divert the train to another prison. There, the inmates courageously stage a prison break, risking their lives.

Luba is witness to the dramatic events that shaped Ukrainian and Soviet history both during and after WWII. In recording her ordeal, she brings to life the stories of her fellow prisoners, and recounts her eventual escape to the West. Scratches on a Prison Wall is a powerful testament to its author and the times in which she lived.