Alias Anna by Susan Hood with Greg Dawson

Zhanna Dimitrinov Arshanskya was born April 1, 1927 in Ukraine, a part of the Soviet Union. Zhanna's mother Sara, an avid reader, chose the Russian name closest to Joan of Arc, beloved heroine of France.

Zhanna and her parents lived in the resort town of Berdyansk. Her father made fruit-flavoured candies and fine caramels which he sold on the street outside their home. Zhanna's father was a self-taught violinist who played at family weddings and in the cinema for the American silent movies. From the money he earned, Zhanna's papa bought a small, upright Bechstein piano from Germany. It was the heart of their home, a spiritual refuge from Communism.

Their home had no hot water, electricity, indoor plumbing or even a refrigerator, but it was a happy one with two grandparents, her mother and father, Zhanna and her baby sister, Frina.

As a three-year-old, Zhanna often wandered around Berdyansk. In the evenings, Zhanna would wait for her papa's good friend, Nicoli who came to their home to play piano. Zhanna delighted in the violin and piano, as they played Rossini, Bizet and Tchaikovsky. She often fell asleep in the living room to their music.

Zhanna refused to attend kindergarten. To stop her wandering, her papa had her study piano with a family friend and pianist, Svetlana. At first Zhanna did not co-operate but gradually as she watched Svetlana play, she grew to love her. Soon Zhanna was playing Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven. Her father began to have small concerts at home with family and friends. He often closed the shutters, darkening the room so Zhanna could display her mastery of the music and keyboard.

In the 1930's, Josef Vissarionvich Dzhugashvili - known as Josef Stalin, wanted to modernize the Soviet Union. To do that, he took over Ukraine's farms, shipped thousands of farming families to Siberia, and sold the grain to other countries in order to buy heavy industrial equipment. With their crops confiscated, the people began to starve. Zhanna saw beggars on the streets as people starved. Her father, who had never joined the Communist party, was repeatedly arrested and questioned. 

Eventually Zhanna's family had to leave Berdyansk. They left behind their grandparents, taking only their violin and small piano. It was now 1935 and Zhanna's family settled in Kharkov, a vibrant center of Jewish culture. Their home was a one room apartment on Katsarskaya Street. Dimitri earned money playing violin and giving piano lessons. 

Dimitri decided to take eight-year-old Zhanna and six-year-old Frina to audition at the renowned Kharkov Conservatory. The judges were so impressed that the girls were each awarded two hundred ruble monthly scholarships. They would study under renowned teacher, Abram Lvovsik Luntz. Under his tutelage, Zhanna learned Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, with which she became obsessed. The school also paired the sisters together on two pianos. Their concert debut was enormously successful, resulting in many new opportunities.

In 1939, Zhanna was twelve and Frina was ten years old. Life seemed to get better with Zhanna's grandparents moving to Kharkov and opening a sweets shop. Zhanna and Frina continued to compete and after a competition at the Moscow State Conservatory, had a private audition with as classmate of Rachmaninoff, Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser. He offered to take them on as pupils but their family could not afford to live on the meager scholarship he offered.

Meanwhile war raged across Europe, until finally in June of 1941 it came to Ukraine.Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Kharkov was a German bombing target and so Zhanna's school became a refugee center. As Stalin's army retreated east, they destroyed everything burning crops and buildings. Over a million people fled Kharkov, and went east to the Ural Mountains and Siberia. Among those were Zhanna's aunt and uncle and her two cousins, Tamara and Celia. They begged Zhanna's mother to flee as well but her health was not good. So Zhanna's family stayed behind. They did not know about Hitler because Stalin had hidden news of Hitler's crimes from the people. They didn't know about the murders, or the mobile killing squads that murdered Communists, Romas and Jews.

On September 29, 1941, Babi Yar, the destruction of almost THIRTY-FOUR THOUSAND Jewish men, women and children occurred outside of Kyiv. This mass murder was done by the Einsatzgruppen. In late October, they came to Kharkov. First the Nazi soldiers terrorized Zhanna's family, demanding gold, then they returned to pillage their apartment, taking Dimitri's violin. Others were not so lucky. The bodies of more than one hundred people hung from the trees in Kharkov.

On December 14, 1941, all Jews in Kharkov were to report to the center of town. Zhanna said good-bye to her best friend Svetlana Gaponovitch, not knowing if she would ever see her again. On December 15, they were told they were being sent away to work.Just before leaving, Zhanna raced home and retrieved the music to Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu. Then, Zhanna, Frina, her parents and grandparents began the long march to an abandoned tractor factory along with sixteen thousand other Jews.They spent the next two weeks in the abandoned factory barracks, in freezing conditions, with no bathrooms and no food. Twice Zhanna left the barracks and walked back to Kharkov to bring food scraps back to her family. She was helped by a family who took her in and allowed her to stay overnight and fed her.

The Nazis told them that they were being taken to Poltava, which happened to be Zhanna's papa's hometown. Her father suspected that they were being taken to their deaths, as the trucks left in the opposite direction to Poltava. Shortly after Christmas, it was Zhanna's family's turn to leave. They were to be marched four miles south to a ravine which would become known as Drobitsky Yar. Zhanna's father was determined to save Zhanna, so he bribed the Ukrainian soldier walking alongside them to look the other way while Zhanna left the march. He was successful.

Now on the run, Zhanna fled back to Kharkov, stopping once again at the home of the family who had sheltered and fed her on her trips back and forth to the barracks. In Kharkov, Zhanna was turned away by her friend, Svetlana Gaponovitch's family but taken in by another classmate's family whose mother was rumoured to be an anti-Semite. Thus began her long journey that would lead ultimately to freedom.

Discussion

Alias Anna tells the story of Zhanna Dimitrinov Arshanskya, the mother of co-author, Greg Dawson and her escape from certain death at the hands of the Nazis in Ukraine during the Holocaust. Alias Anna is a true story, told in verse. It's important because it was written for children. As Greg Dawson writes, "Alias Anna brings the story of the Shoah in Ukraine to a vast new audience, arguably the most important of all, the next generation to inherit the world and become keeps of the flame. 'Never again.' "

Zhanna's story is divided into six parts, Overture, Prelude, Fugue, Invention, Variations and Bridge - each named for a musical term. Her story is told using poems in free verse. In a section titled Poetry Notes at the back, Hood writes about the many poetic forms used in the novel. These forms include a tercet which is a poem with stanzas of three lines, a reverso poem which "reads one way going down and presents another idea or point of view when the same lines are read going up.", an elegy which is used to "praise or mourn the dead," and a haiku, "a traditional Japanese form of unrhymed poetry, originally written as one vertical line and measured in morae, or breaths. There are many more forms used in the telling of Zhanna's story as noted at the back.

The novel opens with a real life event involving Zhanna's granddaughter, Aimee, who is Greg Dawson's daughter, writing a letter to her grandmother about a history project that requires her "to find out as much as possible about our grandparents and what was going on when they were 13 years old..." Zhanna had only spoken to her son Greg, once about the Shoah. The events were so traumatic they were sealed inside her heart never to be spoken about again. Until Aimee's request. According to Greg Dawson, as related in the section titled, Finding Zhanna's Story, his mother wrote back a lengthy letter and found the determination and courage to share her story.

In Alias Anna, Hood portrays Zhanna's early life living in the small village of  Berdyansk so readers understand what life was like before both Stalin and the Holodomor and before the Shoah. Although they did not have any of the modern amenities we take for granted today, their life was a happy one. That is until Stalin began to plunder the farms and resources of Ukraine, leaving the people starving. But the arrival of the Nazis heralded a new form of terror: the beginning of the mass murder Ukrainian Jews. This was the beginning of the Hitler's final solution, a terror that would spread to other European countries and for which the Nazis would devise more efficient ways of achieving via gas chambers.

In addition to being a brilliant pianist, Zhanna was also a resourceful, courageous and intelligent girl. Despite the trauma of losing her parents, she focused only on what her father's last words were, "I don't care what you do. Just live."  So when Zhanna escaped the massacre of her parents and other Jews in what came to be known as Drobitsky Yar, she and Frina (who also escaped) had to forge new identities and learn to survive. Those new identities were Anna  and Marina Morozova, forming the basis of the novel's title, Alias Anna. Eventually, the two talented girls found themselves giving nightly performances to German soldiers - those same soldiers who murdered Jews by day but by night were the epitome of respectability and culture. This must have been both painful and disgusting for Zhanna and Frina. But they did this to survive, to honour the sacrifice her parents made.

"How could she do it?
Play for the enemy
who had killed her family?
'I don't care what you do. Just stay alive.'
This was what it took to stay alive.
So Zhanna closed her eyes and played
for the memory of her family."

Alias Anna is such an important novel because it's intended for middle grade readers who often do not know about the Holocaust. It's timely in light of the current conflict in Ukraine, an area of Europe that has experienced ongoing conflict for decades. Zhanna questioned how it was possible to bring such a story to children. In his With Gratitude section, Dawson writes, "This is how: with rhythmic, accessible verse in service of a faithful abridging of the story for youthful sensibilities." Alias Anna does just that. It doesn't overwhelm young readers with horrific details but gives them just enough to understand what happened. Zhanna's story is told in an interesting way, with easy to read poems, the style of which vary, engaging readers as they move through the book. 

The authors open the novel with a map of the region, indicating Zhanna and Frina's journey throughout World War II. At the back of the novel are extensive notes for readers including sections on Photographs, The Letters which explores the significant of Zhanna's letter to Aimee, Finding Zhanna's Story which details Greg's discovery of his mother's incredible story, a list of The Pieces Zhanna and Frina Played, Hitler Stalin and Music, Field Trips and Places of Note, Poetry Notes on the types of poems in the novel, Sources, Quote Sources, Websites, News Reports, Films, and a Bibliography. Hood and Dawson have offered many resources for readers, educators and parents to explore.

Teachers, librarians and parents are all encouraged to make use of Alias Anna as a way to educate young children about the Shoah, the Holodomor and as to what can happen when bullying, bigotry and racism are allowed to grow. We owe it to the Zhannas and Frinas of the past to pass on these lessons learned as such a terrible cost.

Book Details:

Alias Anna by Susan Hood with Greg Dawson
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books   2022
339 pp.

Traitor. A novel by Amanda McCrina

Traitor is a historical fiction novel set during World War II that explores the little known events during the war in Poland and the Ukraine. It is told through two narratives, that of Tolya and Aleksey.

Tolya Korolenko is a sniper with the First Ukrainian Front of the Soviet Red Army which has now moved into the Ukraine. On Stalin's orders, the First Ukrainian Front are rounding up and disarming every Polish Resistance fighter left in the city of Lwow. The officers are to be shipped east to the labour camps; the rank and file soldiers offered amnesty if they will join the Soviets.

It is late in the day when Tolya comes across a man assaulting a woman. Tolya fires a bullet into the back of the Soviet, only to see that it is Zampolit Sergei Petrov. Toyla finishes the job with a bullet to the back of the head and offers to help the young woman whom he suspects is Polish resistance. But she is having none of it. Instead she robs the dead Petrov of his gun and ammunition turns on Tolya but leaves him unharmed with his rifle.

Tolya has no regrets about killing Petrov as he's wanted to kill him after what happened in Tarnopol. Tolya's friend and mentor, Comrade Lieutenant Spirin had managed to make it back from behind German lines despite two broken ribs and a bullet in his back. Petrov had him executed by firing squad, believing he'd survived because he was a double agent. After the girl leaves, Tolya is spotted by Russian soldiers and runs through the streets to lose them.

Back with his unit at the train station, as the night settles in, Comrade Lieutenant Maksym Rudenko, the battalion commander warns Tolya not to miss curfew again. He tells him he will inform Comrade Colonel Sokolov, commander of their division, "it was an accidental discharge."

The next day Tolya meets up with Nataliya Koval, a sniper also with the First Ukrainian Front. Koval warns Tolya that the Soviets suspect one of them killed Petrov. She tells him that the NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del - the People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs) Soviet secret police will be certain to investigate.They will torture him to reveal "all the other anti-Soviet elements in the company." She warns him that the NKVD will know he had issues with Petrov and that other soldiers will talk. Koval tells Tolya that he could be far into the mountains in two days but he refuses to run. He lies to Koval and promises her he will leave that night for Stryy.

But at noon, the NKVD come for Tolya. Three men take him from the noon mess hall to the station and into a black car. They tell Tolya they are not NKVD, introducing themselves as Andriy, Taras, Yakiv and Aleksey known as Solovey. They are with the L'viv group of the UPA (Ukrainska Povstankska Armiia) - "the Insurgent Army, radical Ukrainian nationalists and anti-Communists." Tolya believes their claim of being part of the UPA and speaking Ukrainian is an attempt to trick him. When they show papers supposedly from the Front's senior NKVD officer Fyodor Volkov at the roadblock, Tolya is certain they are NKVD. 

They leave the city behind and eventually pull off the road.As they begin hiking into the woods, Tolya tells them to just shoot him. Solovey insists they are not NKVD and that they have "extracted" him. Tolya tries unsuccessfully to convince Solovey to let him go but when he refuses, he runs and is shot in the shoulder. When Solovey opens Tolya's shirt, he sees the rosary around his neck and knows this means he is Polish and a Roman Catholic. With Andriy, Taras and Yakiv coming, Solovey rips the rosary off and pockets it. Still Tolya believes the UPA who hate Poles and believe in cleansing the Ukraine, will kill him.

Tolya is given morphine, the bullet removed by a Red Cross nurse and he begins to recuperate in the UPA's field camp. Solovey tells him that their source in the Front arranged to get him "extracted" as he was in danger. But Tolya has no idea what's going on. The Red Cross nurses want to take Tolya to Toporiv to recover but Solovey refuses and offers Tolya another choice after he proves he can still shoot. He is asked to assassinate Fyodor Volkov, the highest ranking NKVD officer in the western Ukraine. Tolya agrees and the group begins planning. When they are told by Yakiv that Volkov is not at headquarters, Tolya goes to sleep. He awakens to find the camp under attack by NKVD forces. They have been betrayed. He and Solovey escape, running into the forest, Tolya without his boots and Solovey with a broken leg from a machine-gun slug. 

Initially they planned to stay at Solovey's grandfather's cabin however they encounter NKVD and realize that this no longer an option and head to Hruszow. Solovey wants Tolya to leave him behind as he is becoming weaker from his injuries but Tolya refuses. At this time Solovey reveals that his real name is Aleksey Yevhenovych Kobryn and he tells Tolya a bit about himself. The issue is settled when they are attacked by the NKVD and Solovey, badly wounded by gunfire, kills himself. Tolya escapes but goes back to bury Solovey and is captured by Vitalik and his UPA squad. 

He is tortured by Vitalik who believes Tolya is really NKVD and that he robbed Solovey. However, when their cabin is surrounded by NKVD who are then surrounded by the Polish Resistance, Tolya is rescued and taken to the home of Mrs. Kijek where he begins to recover from the torture. However, during his convalescence, the NKVD attack the house. As he's taking out the machine gun nests in the forest, Tolya unexpectedly meets up with Nataliya Koval whom he thought was dead. She explains what has happened over the past few months. She gives Tolya a chance to escape along with Mrs. Kijek and her daughter, Lena. The truth about the informer in the Ukrainian Front is revealed.

A second narrative by Aleksey Yevhenovych Kobryn, set three years earlier, in 1941 as the Germans are entering Lwow,  provides some of the backstory of the characters encountered in Tolya's narrative. Like Tolya, Aleksey encounters the various factions fighting in Lwow, including the Nachtigallen, Ukrainians who are the advance troops for the Germans, Vitalik of the UPA, and the Kijeks who work for the Polish Resistance.

Discussion

In Traitor, the complexities of war in Eastern Europe are explored along with the themes of loyalty and betrayal and what it means to be a traitor.

The main story is told through the narrative of Tolya, an eighteen-year-old of mixed Ukrainian and Polish ethnicity. The story is set in Galicia, a region that contains parts of both Poland and the Ukraine. In this region, with a long history of conflict, people were fighting not only occupation by the Germans (Nazis), but the Russians (Communists) as well as each other; Polish against Ukrainian and vice versa. Tolya's mixed heritage makes  him a possible traitor no matter which side he chooses and this seems to be his lot in the story. His father, a Ukrainian had died in prison while his mother was murdered simply because she was Polish. With the death of his parents, he was taken in by his Aunt Olena and his uncle who were Communist Party members but eventually when the Germans arrived in 1941, he was conscripted into the Russian army as a sniper.

Some characters in Aleksey's story are found three years later in Tolya's story: Aleksey is now Solovey of the UPA, Vitalik a brutal man who tortures Tolya and who killed Aleksey's father because he knew too much, and Mrs. Kijek, a nurse who treats both Aleksey and Tolya.

Readers will not find Traitor an easy read. There are many characters, who switch in and out of the various factions and at times it's difficult to know which side a character may be affiliated with.  While this serves to drive home the complexity of the conflict in Galicia during World War II, it can also be very confusing. And Aleksey, one of the narrators, appears as a character under a different name (Solovey) in Tolya's story. Thankfully McCrina does provide her readers with a List of Characters at the back of the book - something that should have been placed more prominently at the front.

Overall the impression after reading this novel is that it is really two books meshed together. What would have made the novel more readable and more enjoyable was to simply tell the stories chronologically, first Aleksey's story set in 1941 with the coming of the Germans as they were initiating Operation Barbarossa, then Tolya's story set in 1944 as the Germans were fleeing the area and the Russians moving in to occupy Galicia. Most adults don't know the 20th century history of this region, never mind teens. The alternating narratives added a layer of complexity that wasn't necessary.

Tolya is representative of the theme of what it means to be a traitor. First there is his heritage. When Lena Kijek mentions that at first she thought Tolya was a Polish conscript, but then realizes he's Ukrainian Tolya doesn't bother to explain. "What was there to say? He wasn't Polish, and he wasn't Ukrainian. He was a traitor to his father's people on account of his mother, and a traitor to his mother's people on account of his father, and a traitor to both on account of the Reds, and a traitor to the Reds on account of Zampolit Petrov."

But Tolya's story is also about the hunt for an informer in the Ukrainian Front - the Russian Red Army moving into the Ukraine in 1944. The Front were afraid the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) would place an informer into its ranks.In Tarnopol, they believed the informer was now within their ranks. After Colonel Spirin was executed, Zampolit Petrov was certain Tolya was the informer and wanted to act. However, Colonel Sokolov refused mainly because he did not want to lose another soldier. Instead, they allowed the UPA to take Tolya and tracked them to their camp. Koval was part of the NKVD who attacked Solovey and the UPA. The NKVD continued to follow Tolya;  he was recaptured by the UPA, then tortured and freed by the Polish resistance. Eventually the NKVD caught up with him at the Kijek's house where Tolya unexpectedly meets Koval and learns the truth about what has happened over the last few months. She admits to being the informer but she participated in the attacks so as to not blow her cover.

Unlike most young adult novels today, Traitor does incorporate some of the Catholic culture which was a part of the Galicia region into the story. Tolya is Catholic and carries a rosary which is considered by the Ukrainians as a way to identify a Polish person. He only knows some of the prayers, but he prays those bits he knows. Although he has no problem as a sniper taking out other soldiers, in his mind he's constantly recalling the counselling of his priest. Father Dmytro tells him "Hate is like hogweed...easily seeded, easily spread--but have you ever tried to root out hogweed? And you've got to root it out, because it chokes out everything else." 

Aleksey spends time in prayer when he returns to the room he shares with Mykola. "I went to the icons and made my prayers in silence -- To Christ first, with the sign of the cross, then to the Theotokos, then to the saints in turn, Saint Yevhen last of all."  Despite his prayers, Aleksey finds himself  considers stealing. "The obvious thing would be to take advantage of the fact that Altshuer's was closed. I'd stolen before, of course, when I'd needed to. It was easy to justify stealing from Poles and Reds. They were the ones who'd created the need in the first place. Repayment in kind -- God would understand and forgive."  When he kills Strilka, Aleksey's surprised at his lack of reaction. "I waited for the pangs of conscience. It was never as easy as you thought it was going to be. I knew that because I'd failed every time before. I hadn't even been able to kill that Red sentry, down at the station. I hadn't been able to kill Andriy, and I hadn't been able to watch Andriy kill that Pole... It was because I didn't have time to think about it, I decided. It would be harder later."

Traitor is a novel that manages to convey the brutality of war both for soldiers and the general population. It is a reminder that during this time people were murdered simply because they were a certain ethnicity (Jewish, Polish or Ukrainian) or because of their political beliefs or for no reason at all. In this regard, Traitor is an important book for our times.

Book Details:

Traitor: A Novel by Amanda McCrina
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers   2020
355 pp.

DVD: Mr. Jones

Mr. Jones is a deeply flawed film that attempts to portray the efforts of a Welsh journalist to uncover the truth about events occurring in the Soviet Union in the early 1930's. At this time much of the country but especially the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Volga region was experiencing a severe famine. The famine in the Ukraine became known as the Holodomor; a catastrophe in which millions of Ukrainian peasants were deliberately starved to death as a result of Stalin's policies. The Western media was complicit in this crime against humanity as they knew what was happening but failed to report on it.

The film opens with scenes of squealing pigs as they feed on a farm,dissolving quickly into scenes of George Orwell beginning work on his novel, Animal Farm. In a voice over, Orwell states, "...The world is being invaded by monsters, but I suppose you don't want to hear about that. I could be writing romantic novels, novels people actually want to read...But if I tell the story of the monsters through the talking farm animals, maybe then you will listen, then you will understand. The future is at stake, so please read carefully between the lines."

From this, the film moves to Gareth Jones, foreign adviser to David Lloyd George addressing his cabinet. Jones tells them about being on a plane with Hitler and Goebbels and thinking if the plane were to crash, the course of history of Europe would be changed. Jones believes the Reichstag incident (fire?) was a diversion and that Germany intends to expand into Poland. Goebbels told Jones that the Reich will last a thousand years. Jones is certain the next Great War has already begun. This is dismissed with much laughter. Jones is taken out of the meeting when a call from Russia comes in for him, but the line goes dead.

Later in his office, Jones listens to Stalin on the radio talking about how the Soviets are making grade strides in building their industrial capabilities. Jones is skeptical. His point to the Lloyd George cabinent was that in a war with Germany, England will need an alliance with Stalin. Ms. Stevenson, Lloyd George's secretary tells Jones that he has been let go. In his meeting with Lloyd George, Jones tells him that he needs someone who will tell him the truth about what's happening. He has no answer on the Soviet question but suggests that Lloyd George could send him to Moscow to interview Stalin.

Jones is able to obtain a press visa from the Soviet embassy in London. He contacts friend Paul Kleb to let him know he's coming to Moscow. Kleb tells him to talk to Walter Duranty about possibly interviewing Stalin and that he really needs to talk to him, that he's found something big, that it's worse than they thought. The line goes dead.

Jones arrives in Moscow where he is met by Duranty who gushes about the Soviets, telling him that they have achieved more in five years than England has in ten. He encourages Jones to go visit the Soviet factories and talk to the British engineers at Metro Vickers. Jones questions Duranty as to how Stalin is paying for his factories and Duranty indicates that "Grain is Stalin's gold." As they talk in Duranty's office, Gareth explains that he has no expectations about getting an interview but that he has many questions, such has how the Kremlin can pay for the widespread industrialization when they are broke. Duranty stuns Jones by revealing that Paul Kleb was killed three days earlier in a robbery outside the Metropol. 

At the Metropol, Jones learns his reservations are only for two nights, contrary to what he was told in England. He meets up with a group of journalists that include John Cushny and L.C. Thorton from Metro Vickers and Eugene Lyons from United Press. They take Jones to Duranty's party which features drugs, booze and plenty of debauchery.  At the party Jones learns that journalists are confined to Moscow. 

After leaving the party, Jones meets Duranty's "star" reporter, Ada. She tells him that Duranty is attempting to lure the Americans to invest in the Soviet Union, in order to move forward the revolution. Jones returns to Ada's apartment the next morning and learns that Paul Kleb was working on the Ukraine and was heading there when he was murdered. After leaving the Metropol, Jones gets a room at a hotel but shows up at Ada's apartment to use her typewriter. He tells her he's going to the Ukraine and to that end meets with a Soviet official - Litvinov?? who is duped into inviting Jones to tour the Ukraine. Ada gives Jones Paul Kleb's notebook and he sets out on his journey to the Ukraine by train with Litvinov. However, Jones disembarks well before their destination of Kharkiv and he begins his journey through the countryside.

Jones finds himself pursued by Soviet soldiers, encounters starving families, dead bodies, abandoned farms and villages and children who resort to cannibalism before being arrested by soldiers and thrown in jail. He is released on the condition that he does not report what he saw but Jones does report on what he saw in the Ukraine and is criticized and ostracized for it.

Discussion

It is always interesting to watch a film that attempts to portray historical events. Are the events portrayed with some accuracy? How much dramatic license is taken with history and how much sensationalism is injected into the story to engage viewers?   Mr. Jones tells the story of Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones whose journey into Soviet Russia and Ukraine in 1933 led to his stunning expose of  widespread famine raging throughout the entire country. It is a film that could have offered viewers a lens into these events but unfortunately, the film gets only the bare bones of the real story right. Viewers are left with misinformation and many inaccuracies about the people involved and the events as they occurred. 

To provide some balance, the following is a synopsis of Gareth Jones and how he came to uncover the famine in Soviet Russia, a famine most international correspondents were loathe to report.

Gareth Jones

Gareth Richard Vaughn Jones, was born in Barry, Glamorgan, Wales, on August 13, 1905, to Major Edgar Jones who was headmaster of the local school and Anne Gwen Jones. Gareth's mother worked from 1889 to 1892 in Russia as a tutor to the children of Arthur Hughes. The stories his mother told about her time in Russia left Jones with the desire to visit the country and learn the language. In 1926, he graduated from University College of Wale,  Aberystwyth with a degree in French and then later in with degrees in French, German and Russian from the Univeristy of Strasborough and Trinity College, Cambridge in 1930.

In 1931, Jones was hired by Dr. Ivy Lee of New York as a researcher for a book on the Soviet Union. This led to a trip to Soviet Russia with Jack Heinz II in the summer of 1931. A book was published anonymously that did mention that peasants in Russia and the Ukraine were starving due to the collectivization of farms. As the world sank deeper into the depression into 1932, Jones returned to England to work for David Lloyd George. By the fall of 1932, continued reports of widespread famine in the Soviet Union made Jones determined to return to the country to uncover the truth.

 In January and February of 1933, Jones first visited Germany where he not only met Adolf Hitler, newly appointed Chancellor of Germany, but was the first foreign journalist allowed to travel with new Chancellor on a flight to Frankfurt. In March, 1933 Jones set out from Germany to Soviet Russia.

At this time, most foreign journalists were not allowed to travel freely in the countryside. They were restricted to living in Moscow, but Jones was able to obtain a train ticket to Kharkiv, capital of the Ukraine. However, Jones got off the train near Belogrod in Russia. Travelling on foot, he journeyed through Russia and into the Ukraine, recording his observations in great detail in his diaries that are in existence today. People he met on this journey spoke of widespread hunger, death and indicated that conditions were even worse to the south, further into the Ukraine. Eventually Soviet officials caught up with Jones and he was put on a train to Kharkiv.  

Gareth Jones returned to Berlin in 1933, and his articles on the Soviet famine were published widely. They created a firestorm of controversy because they contradicted a series of articles New York Times reporter Walter Duranty's wrote, articles that won him a Pulitzer Prize. His prize was never revoked. Duranty was provided with many perks by the Soviet government and in return he wrote articles that covered up the failures of the Soviet collectivization plan, including the resultant widespread famine that killed millions.

Walter Duranty's article

Mr. Jones never really offers an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding Jones's trip to Soviet Russia in 1933 nor even his stunning expose of the famine in the country. At times it included people and events that have nothing to do with his story. For example, in the film's opening scenes, George Orwell is shown working on his novel Animal Farm. Gareth Jones did not meet or know George Orwell. And Orwell's novella, Animal Farm was not written at the same time as the events in the film but was authored in 1943 and 1944. By juxtaposing scenes of Orwell working on his novel, the movie implies that it was written contemporaneously.  

For a film portraying historical events, Mr. Jones offers no dates or timeline. It also incorporates many references without any context and misplaces others. For example, when Gareth Jone is riding on a train into the Ukraine he repeatedly questions the other passengers about Hughesovka, or Stalino. These references are connected to Jones but that is never made clear in the film. Hughesovka was named after Jones's grandfather who developed several industries in the area. In 1924 it was renamed Stalino. The film also misplaces a famous line attributed to Gareth Jones. He did not utter his prophetic line, " If this areoplane should crash, the whole history of Europe would be changed." to Lloyd George in a meeting but instead it was written as the lead sentence in his article about Hitler in 1933.

The film frequently states that Gareth Jones obtained an exclusive interview with Hitler and was determined to obtain the same sort of scoop with Stalin. However, Jones did not go to Russia to interview Stalin but to specifically investigate the many rumours of widespread famine that were being refuted or even ignored by the British and American press. In fact, Walter Duranty's articles which won him the coveted Pultizer Prize the year before, appeared to settle the question. But Jones was out to discover the truth for himself.

In the film Jones is aided by Ada, supposedly Duranty's "star". However, he never had a love interest in Russia. He was there to do a job. It's likely there was no Paul Kleb to give him a lead on where to go in the Ukraine. Gareth Jones knew what he needed to do in order to learn the truth.

Gareth Jones' stunning expose of the truth in Russia.

Jones's articles did not just focus on the famine in the Ukraine but instead reported on widespread famine throughout all of  Russia as well as the Ukraine. His article "Famine Rules Russia" suggested that the famine was the result of Stalin's Five Year Plan to industrialize Russia.  which destroyed "all that was best in Russia". His articles never cited carts of dead bodies or instances of cannibalism, like those portrayed in the film. But what he reported overall was in huge contrast to Walter Duranty's article only a year earlier. 

Gareth Jones was never arrested nor was he held in a Soviet jail. Instead he quietly left the country and returned to Berlin.

Director, Agnieszka Holland had the opportunity to produce a film that would inform an entire generation about Stalin, the reality of communism, the famine in Russia and the Ukraine that was caused entirely by policies of the Stalin government resulting in the death millions, as well as the coverup by Western journalists, desperate to keep on the good side of the communist regime. Instead, the film takes so much dramatic license with the real events, that the real story is mostly lost. This doesn't make the movie entirely without merit but viewers will be left wondering what is fact and what is fiction. Instead viewers should use it as a launching point for their own research, to learn more about what really happened. 

Information about Stalin's Five Year Plan can be found at the Library of Congress.

Readers can discover for themselves much more about Gareth Jones from a website his family maintains. His mother did considerable research after his diaries were discovered hidden under a stairwell in a suitcase.

The BBC website profile of Gareth Jones.

Image credits:

Gareth Jones: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/waleshistory/2010/03/gareth_jones_investigative_journalist.html

Walter Duranty and Gareth Jones article images: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/red-famine-anne-applebaum-ukraine-soviet-union/542610/