Ms. Katia Bendiche died in January 2024, at the Layrac nursing home. On several occasions, in these columns, we have recounted aspects of his difficult youth in Dombass, in Ukraine, a region that Russian troops today want to conquer.
An “extraordinary” epic
At the time of Holomodor, this terrible famine caused by Stalin, his father, arrested for smuggling, undoubtedly died in the Gulag. Deported to Germany, to Wittenberg, she met a young Frenchman from the STO there. After a clandestine love affair, she gave birth to a little boy, alone and in more than precarious conditions. One fine morning, while the Russians and Americans were advancing on Berlin, they found themselves free, beginning with the child and his found companion, a desperate flight across the German countryside, unaware of the progress of the war. Repatriated to France, they came to live on the banks of the Garonne, in Tarn-et-Garonne, then in Laplume, in Lot-et-Garonne. Research following the war revealed that the entire rest of the family had perished in concentration camps.
This extraordinary epic gave Bernard Grolleau the idea of writing a novel where we find the framework of this extraordinary life story. “Anna’s Incredible Journey” is therefore a historical novel. For the moment, it is available at Tabacs-Presses in Layrac and Caudecoste, as well as from the “Générations Mouvement” clubs in Laplume and Saint-Nicolas/Saint Sixte.
