The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman

Valentina Kaplan lives in Pripyat, Ukraine with her mother Galina Yurievna Goldman Kaplan and her father, Nicolai.

One Saturday morning in April, 1986, she awakens to find that there are no blue jays, blackbirds or sparrows in the sky or on her windowsill waiting to eat the pieces of salami. To the south, instead of the robin-egg blue sky, there is a crimson glow with blue smoke lifting into the sky. Underneath that smoke is the nuclear power station,  the V.I. Lenin Power Station, also called Chernobyl, where her father works. Valentina's father is usually home from his night shift at the power station by morning, but today he hasn't returned.

Although Valentina is beginning to panic, her mother reminds her that they were running a safety drill at the station and that he might simply be late. She also tells Valentina that they must act normal, go to school and work so they don't attract the attention of the government and the secret police. And because they are Jews and hated, it was important to be safe. 

Outside, Valentina notes that the air tastes like metal and sees policemen everywhere. At school, Valentina meets Oksana Savchenko, a Ukrainian girl with blond hair and blue eyes. Oksana lives with her father, Ilya who works at the power plant. She dislikes Valentina who is Jewish because her father has told her that all Jews are liars who work together to try to destroy everyone else. Valentina's father had been given the promotion at the nuclear station that should have gone to Oksana's father. Oksana challenges Valentina to a race in the  hopes she can win and go home to brag to her father, but she loses the race. When Oksana taunts Valentina about being Jewish, their teacher, Svetlana Dmitrievna steps and punishes the two girls by having them kneel on rice. 

While none of her classmates seem concerned, when they leave school at noon, Valentina sees military trucks with drivers wearing gas masks driving into Pripyat. As the two girls return to their apartments in the same building, Valentina meets Dyadya Sergei who is very brown from "tanning" on the roof. In Oksana's apartment just as they are getting ready to eat, Valentina and her mother, Galina Yurievna arrive and tell Oksana and her mother Eleonora that she has learned that reactor number four exploded during the safety drill, causing the explosion and a fire. The men are now at the hospital and the mothers and daughters leave carrying their family's radiation medicine: a glass bottle of milk and cucumbers. On their way out of the building they encounter Dyadya Sergei who is now suddenly desperately ill. Oksana's mother tells him he needs to get to the hospital. Oksana wonders if there is something in the air that can hurt them.

At Pripyat Hospital it is chaotic and filled with horrific smells. Valentina and her mother find her father, Nicolai, burning with fever, sweating profusely. Valentina is hauled out of the room by a doctor who tells them that the explosion has made her father's body very radioactive and that being close to him might kill her. He tells them to leave immediately and that he cannot tell the other families because the government is worried about causing widespread panic. The doctor also tells them that their husbands are being flown to a special hospital in Moscow and that they should return with clothing for them.  But when they return they learn that the men have already been taken to Moscow.

In her apartment, Oksana tries to study but instead focuses on drawing. Her father wanted her to study engineering and Oksana was good at math and science but she hated these subjects. Oksana's mother reveals that her father was buried under the rubble from the explosion and is dead. Her mother mostly ignores Oksana and is worried about being alone. In Valentina's apartment, her mother makes her take the tablets, they shower and throw away the clothing they were wearing. 

The next day they are ordered to be evacuated from Pripyat. When they are checked with dosimeters, Oksana's mother is sent to the hospital as her radiation levels are too high. A terrified, distraught Oksana is taken in by Valentina's mother who tells her they must take the bus to Kiev where she has a friend who can help them. On the bus, Oksana notes all the dead blackbirds and sparrows and the damaged trees and bushes.

In Kiev, Oksana wants to travel to Minsk where her mother has been hospitalized but Valentina's mother discourages her from doing so, telling her the trip is too far and that she will call to find out about her mother. Instead they take the subway to Dimeezskaya Street where Valentina's mother's friend, Masha Petrovna lives

At the apartment, the girls bathe and that's when Valentina sees Oksana's wounded back and scars. They are unable to learn much about Oksana's mother and unable to reach her relatives near Pripyat. When they listen to the foreign radio station they learn that "... high levels of radiation were detected at a Swedish nuclear power plant this morning..." and that "Swedish nuclear experts traced the weekend's wind currents and determined the radiation originated from the Soviet Union."  With the government denying everything, Valentina's mother realizes this is much worse than she believed. As a result Masha insists Valentina's mother and the girls leave immediately, believing them to be a health risk. 

Valentina's mother decides they will travel to Leningrad to live with her mother but when they try to get train tickets, only two are available so Valentina and Oksana are put on the train while she stays behind. In Leningrad the two girls are met by Valentina's grandmother or Babulya, Rits Grigorievna. 

Life with Babulya proves to undo the lies that Oksana has been told by her father about Jews. Not only that but for the first time in her life, she begins to feel good about herself and truly loved. Oksana learns the truth about herself and it is this belief in her own goodness that ultimate saves Oksana when she finds herself back in an abusive situation with her mother.

Interspersed with Valentina and Oksana's stories, is the story of twelve-year-old Rifka Friedman who is living in Kiev, Ukraine, Soviet Union with her pregnant mother and two younger brothers. In August of 1941, the Germans begin their invasion of the country. Rifka's mother, who has just given birth to her brother Avrum, insists that she flee east with her fifteen year old cousin, Nathan. 

The two leave but when the German army catches up to them, Rifka and Nathan hide in a farmer's barn. However, the farmer forces Nathan to work for him, while Rifka must continue on alone. She escapes the German bombing with the help of fleeing Ukrainian refugees who do not realize she is Jewish. Rifka realizes this when they accept her presence and uses the name Yelena. However, as fall turns to bitter winter and Rifka suffers from hunger and the cold, she is overheard mumbling in her sleep about Adonai - the Jewish word for God. She is forced out into the cold. Near death, Rifka is rescued by a young Muslim girl, Feruza Chorieva and her mother Ona.

Rifka stays the remainder of the war in Tashket, Uzbekistan, a part of the Soviet Union, living with Feruza and her seven siblings. Feruza and her mother Una accept Rifka even though she is Jewish. She attends school but works on their farm and is treated with love and care. Believing God has abandoned her, Rifka decides to ignore God.

When the war ends, Rifka returns to Kiev to find her family have all been murdered. In despair and unsure what to do she travels to Leningrad. There at the Shabbat service at the Grand Choral Synagogue, she meets a young boy, Yuri Goldman, whom she eventually marries. They have a daughter, Galina, which mean "light". Galina will go on to marry and have her own daughter, Valentina, thus completing the circle and connecting all the characters.

Discussion

The Blackbird Girls is a beautifully crafted story about friendship that spans a forty-year period and two major catastrophes, the German invasion of Ukraine in 1941 and the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

The novel opens in April, 1986 in the city of Pripyat, Ukraine on a Saturday morning as two girls, Ukrainian Oksana Savchenko and Jewish Valentina Kaplan are going about their day, attending school in the morning as usual. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor has malfunctioned during a test overnight, has exploded and is now on fire. The people of Pripyat are unaware of the deadly situation they are in. They believe whatever has happened, their government will protect them and their men who work at the reactor. As the day progresses and the situation worsens, they are evacuated. However, Oksana's mother is taken away because she has been exposed to a higher level of radiation, having worked for a short time on the rooftop garden. Oksana finds herself alone, her father having died during the explosion, with no where to go. It is Valentina's mother who kindly takes charge of Oksana, telling her they will care for her.

From this point forward, against the backdrop of the Chernobyl disaster and their evacuation, this story focuses on the relationship between Oksana Savchenko and the Jewish Kaplans.  Although the two girls are classmates, they are not friends. Oksana has been told by her parents that "All Jews are liars...They're always watching you, trying to find a way to steal your job away from you or take your place...." Oksana has been told her father didn't get the promotion he deserved because of Valentina's father. Her deeply entrenched anti-Semitic views make Oksana reluctant to be connected with the Kaplans.

In Kiev, Oksana continues to feel alone and afraid. "What should she do? Who would help her? She couldn't stay with the Kaplans. Her father hated them." When Valentina's mother insists that Oksana stay with them in Kiev, Oksana continues to feel conflicted. "Stay with Jews. In the same room. Eat the same foods. Sleep under the same ceiling." Oksana realizes she has no one to rescue her except two Jews. 

As Valentina and Oksana are sent on alone to Leningrad to Valentina's grandmother, Oksana begins to realize that what she's been told about Jews by her father doesn't seem to be true. Valentina's gratitude towards Oksana for helping her understand her father's last words trigger Oksana to remember her father saying "that gratitude from a Jew was a poisoned gift. That they were liars...."  These revelations create a deep sense of conflict within Oksana regarding her father.

Babulya's modest apartment, called a kommunalka or community apartment is where the poorest people lived. Oksana's father had said that Jews were secretly rich and hid their money. But Babulya's home and lifestyle was that of a poor person. These revelations crush Oksana. Was her father just mistaken or lying? If her father was wrong about Jews perhaps he had been wrong about other things too. Oksana feels confused and angry.

Valentina and Babulya's kindness deepen Oksana's conviction that she has been lied too. Oksana arrives at Babulya's with a badly infected wound from a cigarette burn inflicted on her by her abusive father. Her abuse is discovered when Valentina and her grandmother have to take her to the hospital. This revelation  makes Valentina realize how little she really knows about her classmate. The kindness Oksana experiences begins to change her. When Valentina is bulled at their new school, Oksana defends her.  She also begins to believe in herself, that she is good, not weak or bad as her father had repeatedly told her. Valentina changes too, deciding she no longer wants to hurt Oksana.

Oksana's deepest desire is to be reunited with her mother, believing that with her abusive father now dead, she and her mother will have the chance to forge a meaningful relationship. However, this doesn't come to pass when her mother becomes involved with yet another abusive man. Losing all hope, Oksana reaches out to the one person who has been a faithful friend, and that is Valentina. In an act of friendship and love that unites the three main characters and transcends time, Valentina and her mother reach out to Feruza, to once again rescue someone in dire need.

The Blackbird Girls is a wonderful story of the healing power of friendship. Blankman has created realistic characters who suffer deeply but also grow as a result of the kindness of others. Just as Feruza and her mother helped Rifka heal from the extreme suffering and hate she experienced during World War II, Rifka now a grandmother (Babuyla) and Valentina help Oksana heal from the abuse and lack of love within her own family. This gives Oksana the courage to leave and find safety once again with Feruza, bringing the circle of healing to a close.

The blackbirds, mentioned throughout the novel and in the title, are "...a symbol for eternity" Feruza tells Rifka. Feruza believes their friendship will last their entire lives, binding them together no matter where they are. Like Rifka and Feruza, Valentina and Oksana are also "blackbird girls".  Valentina, who wants to have Oksana return to Leningrad, fears she will never see Oksana again. Babulya tells her "Distance between true friends doesn't matter when their friendship lives in their hearts..." and that Oksana, after hearing her story about living with Feruza, believes that Valentina is her "blackbird girl". 

Blankman had wanted to write a book about the Chernobyl disaster ever since she met a new friend at the ninth-grade sleepover. That friend, Victoria Belfer Zabarko told her she had survived the disaster as a child. Victoria was one of thousands of Soviet children who were sent out of the Chernobyl region. Her parents had one plane ticket which they used to send her to relatives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Eventually, her whole family would emigrate to the United States. 

The Blackbird Girls offers a historical perspective on both the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as well as the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Surprisingly, even in 1986, widespread anti-Semitism still existed in the Soviet Union, something many readers may not realize. Overall, The Blackbird Girls is a well-written piece of historical fiction that offers many themes to explore including abuse, the meaning and role of friendship, and racism. Blankman offers resources in the back matter for those suffering from abuse and there is a section, Further Reading providing fiction and nonfiction resources on the Soviet Union. 

This is a novel that may have been overlooked since it was published in 2020 just prior to the onset of the Covid pandemic. Well worth the read!

Book Details:

The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman
New York: Viking    2020
340 pp.