Review of The Officer’s Daughter, by Zina Rohan

The Officer’s Daughter reminds me, oddly enough, of Huck Finn, if it’s possible to say that about a book set in World War II and crossing much of Poland, the USSR, and into Iran with a stop in England later on. It’s a tale of a young person’s epic journey and ongoing moral crises. No feuding between families, just nations, and plenty of slavery of one sort or other.

On the eve of the German invasion of Poland, Marta Dolniak, a headstrong, overly idealistic, naïve sixteen-year-old Polish girl and her fellow Girl Guides are separated by chance from their families and taken to a convent at the eastern edge of Poland. For the crime of having a father who is an officer in the Polish army, she is arrested by the Russians (at that moment, you’ll recall, Russia was allied with Germany) and taken to Siberia in a boxcar with a group of Jews. Marta has a great deal of growing up to do and she has to do it in the harshest of circumstances. She’s at her best when forced to rise to horrific challenges. She lets herself down with tragic consequences when she has a chance to make her own choices rather than responding to the requirements of war and abuse. As a detailed character study the book excels. The supporting characters are also persuasively and intimately developed. Rohan portrays moments of history with precision and intelligence.

Rohan depicts parts of the war that aren’t usually shown: the plight of Poles caught up as prisoners in the grinding “system” of the USSR and the mass evacuation into exotic places like Tehran of these starved souls once Russia changed its allegiance. Fortunately in the midst of such horrors, one of Rohan’s themes is the willingness of people to stand by each other, to risk themselves for the good of others. Interestingly, a character who vociferously voices the view that Marta should learn to put her own well being first, to act consistently out of self-interest, is the one who sacrifices the most and turns out not to believe his own advice.

The Officer’s Daughter portrays an epic span geographically and emotionally. Rohan employs fully her giant canvas, but the length, 576 pages, does drag the reader down at times, particularly when Marta is bringing self-inflicted misery on herself. I do recommend The Officer’s Daughter for an understanding of a less explored side of World War II and for an extended portrayal of a young woman you admire and want to strangle in turns.