As I Remember It: The Lina Graebner Diaries

Born Galina Petrovna, Lina Graebner tells the inspiring and tragic story of her family’s attempts to escape the threats of Russian Communism during World War II. Along with her mother and sisters, Lina documents their narrow escapes as they fled from country to country, and the many brave people who helped them.

Beginning in Siberia, the story follows their journeys to Crimea, Caucasus, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and finally to Austria. Along the way they suffered deprivation, starvation, fighting, death and ostracisation.

At the end of the war the remaining family found themselves in Austria, among hundreds of thousands of refugees, ‘Displaced Persons’, desperately seeking refuge in other countries. Five years later, in 1950, the family was welcomed by Australia, and so began a new life of freedom and acceptance.

Lina’s diaries, written much later in life, reflect on the experiences of their escape, and the loss and disappearance of so many of their family members along the way. They also record her determination to embrace the language and culture of her newly adopted country, and the many challenges which continued to confront her.

This inspiring story focuses on the lives of four women as they endured starvation, persecution and loss, yet discovered a will to survive under the most extreme of conditions.