Some survived, most did not. This is a story of a family that would have lived during those times and how they might have survived. It is also a story of Katya after the Homodor and how she dealt with the aftermath and survivor's guilt. A story of her daughter and granddaughter and how on her death bed she finally found peace. The contemporary timeline, while interesting, is very drab in comparison to the past story. It is too predictable. The characters are pretty one-dimensional. I also found it very farfetched that Cassie’s family, especially her mom, knew zilch about their Ukrainian heritage. Cassie seemed quite incapable of understanding even the most obvious of connections while the rest of us could decode the clues from a mile away. The story follows an Ukrainian family and their struggle for survival as the country is forced to go through Holodomor. I had never heard of this or learned about this in school . Holodomor is a forced starvation from 1932 to 1933 killing up to 5 million people. It was carried out by the Soviet Regime. What has your own experience with Ukraine been prior to this book? Did the settings feel familiar from your own travels there?

Seventy years later that Ukrainian bride is now the grandmother of the young grieving American widow. For many years the grandmother has repressed the traumatic memories of her past and has withheld any mention of it to her family. But now this aging grandmother is developing symptoms of dementia, and those memories from long ago are beginning to arise. Furthermore, she perceives that her granddaughter and great granddaughter could benefit by learning about her experience recovering from trauma all those many years ago. The Holodomor (literally death by hunger) was another horrific time in the history of Ukrainia. It was a time of famine, terror, deportation, and death. The famine was manmade by Stalin and the Soviets as they stripped the country of its food. As the author said “everyone wants Ukraine’s fertile soil for their own, and nobody wants to let Ukrainians rule it.” In the author’s notes, Litteken reports that 1 in 8 Ukrainians died during this time and the country lost almost 13% of its population. And yet, the famine/terror was denied by the Soviets and even by western journalists for years. Litteken said a copy of “The Memory Keeper of Kyiv” is headed his way — and not just his way. The book has earned glowing blurbs from bestselling authors Kate Quinn and Christy Lefteri ( “The Beekeeper of Aleppo”) and is already set to be translated and republished in a dozen different languages. Zusammen ergibt es ein großes Ganzes, das viele bewegende Momente mit sich bringt. Wobei ich ganz klar sagen muss, dass mich der Erzählstrang der Vergangenheit am meisten bewegt und berührt hat. Durch die häufig wechselnde Zeit und Perspektive fiel es mir gerade im Bezug auf Cassie doch schwer einen Bezug aufzubauen und sie blieb mir ehrlich gesagt doch sehr fern.The Memory Keeper of Kyiv is a dual-timeline novel. It follows a young woman and her family as they deal with Stalin’s invasion and the resulting famine in the 1930s and her granddaughter as she comes to term with her own losses and seeks to reconnect with her family heritage in the early 2000s. As Ukrainian citizens continue to fight for their country’s sovereignty, they’ve gained admirers all over the world. The Memory Keeper of Kyiv reminds us that Ukrainians have been fighting these battles for over a century. The common threads of love, hope, resilience and loss are woven through both timelines to produce a reimagined story and an informative read about actual events in history the Russian government denies.

Je maakt steeds sprongen naar deze gebeurtenissen die zich rond 1929-1934 afspelen. Vooral deze stukken vond ik erg interessant en heftig. Je leest over de grote liefde van Katya en de vreselijke dingen die zij, haar familie en andere bewoners van Oekraïne hebben moeten meemaken. Ook is het natuurlijk interessant om meer over Cassie en haar dochtertje te lezen, maar de periode van Katya vond ik toch net even wat boeiender. Er zitten echt schokkende momenten tussen namelijk. With the help of a kind neighbor who is fluent in Ukrainian, Cassie is able to translate her grandmother’s journal. Through this journal, Cassie learns of the unspeakable hardships her grandmother suffered during the Holodomor (great famine) inflicted on the Ukrainian people at the direction of Stalin in the 1930’s.This story alternates between 1929/early thirties and 2004. The earlier time frame chronicles the experiences of Katya during the Holodomor in Ukrainia, while the latter introduces her in later years with her daughter, grand daughter, Cassie, and great granddaughter, Birdie. The characters in the present day story are linked to the characters in the past by a discovered journal telling of the hardships suffered in the past.