The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance Colby Sasha
A granddaughter explores the story of her Ukrainian grandmother's survival of Hitler's forced labor campsIrina Nikifortchuk was 19 years old and a Ukrainian schoolteacher when she was abducted to be a…
Specifikacia The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance Colby Sasha
A granddaughter explores the story of her Ukrainian grandmother's survival of Hitler's forced labor campsIrina Nikifortchuk was 19 years old and a Ukrainian schoolteacher when she was abducted to be a forced laborer in the Leica camera factory in Nazi Germany. Eventually pulled from the camp hospital to work as a domestic in the Leica owners' household, Irina survived the war and eventually found her way to Canada.Decades later Sasha Colby, Irina's granddaughter, seeks out her grandmother's story over a series of summer visits and gradually begins to interweave the as-told-to story with historical research. As she delves deeper into the history of the Leica factory and World War II forced labor, she discovers the parallel story of Elsie Khn-Leitz, Irina's rescuer and the factory heiress, later imprisoned and interrogated by the Gestapo on charges of "excessive