Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of Russian history at Carnegie Mellon University. I have visited Russia many times and spent years working in Russian archives. I am keenly aware of the impact World War II and the Nazis had on the country: a loss of 26-7 million people, wide-scale suffering, mass murder of civilians, and destruction of cities, towns, and villages. The majority of German divisions were concentrated on the eastern front, and it was here the Red Army broke the back of the Wehrmacht. Yet because of divisions created by the Cold War, Americans are taught little about the central role the Soviet Union played in this victory. As a historian, I am strongly committed to bringing the full story of the war to light.


I wrote

Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front During World War II

By Wendy Z. Goldman, Donald Filtzer,

Book cover of Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front During World War II

What is my book about?

After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, German troops seized the heartland of Soviet industry and agriculture and…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad

Wendy Z. Goldman Why did I love this book?

After the German army encircled Leningrad, Hitler vowed that he would let the city starve to death. Leningrad, blockaded for 900 days in the longest-running siege in modern history, lost almost one million people to starvation. Salisbury tells the gripping story of the siege, following the lives of survivors, their families, friends, and neighbors. He brings us into the icy, darkened apartments, where the dead lay unburied and the daily bread ration, wrung from the city’s remaining food stocks and deliveries hauled over the treacherous ice of Lake Ladoga, became the only link to survival.

By Harrison Salisbury,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The 900 Days as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Nazi siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944 was one of the most gruesome episodes of World War II. Nearly three million people endured it just under half of them died. For twenty-five years the distinguished journalist and historian Harrison Salisbury pieced together this remarkable narrative of villainy and survival, in which the city had much to fear-from both Hitler and Stalin.


Book cover of Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II

Wendy Z. Goldman Why did I love this book?

Why are soldiers willing to fight and die, often despite horrific odds, for a cause?  And why do whole armies fall apart under less difficult conditions? The Red Army, which lost millions of men and suffered massive encirclements by the Wehrmacht provides the perfect case study of these questions. After months of retreat, the Red Army turned the tide at Stalingrad and drove the Nazis back to Berlin. 

Reese’s careful research and balanced conclusions note that morale and motivation fluctuated depending on soldiers’ nationality, social group, and personal circumstances. Many were deeply motivated by Soviet patriotism, which was sometimes, but not always coincident, with socialist ideals and support for Stalin. The army quickly proved that despite catastrophic losses of people and equipment, it could regroup and deliver victory. Its successes were tied in no small measure to the efforts the Soviet state poured into creating strong morale and motivation. Credit, in Reese’s view, belongs to the young urban workers and students, the communists, the Komosomoltsy, and the officers. Long after the war ended, veterans continued to believe that they had fought a “just war,” part of a morally-justified, global crusade against fascism.

By Roger R. Reese,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Inept leadership, inefficient campaigning, and enormous losses would seem to spell military disaster. Yet despite these factors, the Soviet Union won its war against Nazi Germany thanks to what Roger Reese calls its "military effectiveness": its ability to put troops in the field even after previous forces had been decimated. Reese probes the human dimension of the Red Army in World War II through a close analysis of soldiers' experiences and attitudes concerning mobilization, motivation, and morale. In doing so, he illuminates the Soviets' remarkable ability to recruit and retain soldiers, revealing why so many were willing to fight in…


Book cover of To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War

Wendy Z. Goldman Why did I love this book?

Manley’s beautifully written, insightful book focuses on one of the greatest feats of World War II: the Soviet evacuation, one step ahead of the Wehrmacht’s lightening advance, of up to 25 million people, along with the industrial base. Evacuation not only saved millions, but made possible the construction of a new industrial base outside the reach of German bombers. Manley follows over 100,000 citizens to Tashkent, a major destination city in Central Asia. She vividly brings to life the long difficult journeys of evacuees and refugees and their struggles to find work, food, and housing in a city flooded by people in flight. She reveals the conflicts that emerged between those who remained under occupation and those who left, between refugees and evacuees, and between new arrivals and those who sheltered them. Her book not only chronicles an epic exodus but also offers an incisive analysis of the political meanings and identities that came to define the experiences of Soviet citizens on the home front.

By Rebecca Manley,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked To the Tashkent Station as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In summer and fall 1941, as German armies advanced with shocking speed across the Soviet Union, the Soviet leadership embarked on a desperate attempt to safeguard the country's industrial and human resources. Their success helped determine the outcome of the war in Europe. To the Tashkent Station brilliantly reconstructs the evacuation of over sixteen million Soviet civilians in one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II. Rebecca Manley paints a vivid picture of this epic wartime saga: the chaos that erupted in towns large and small as German troops approached, the overcrowded trains that trundled eastward, and the…


Book cover of My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back

Wendy Z. Goldman Why did I love this book?

Mary Leder was an American teenager in the 1930s when her Jewish socialist immigrant parents, poverty-stricken by the Great Depression, decided to return to Russia to build a Jewish homeland in Birobidzhan. After a brief period of difficulty, they left the Soviet Union and returned to the United States, but Leder was detained due to passport difficulties.

In this moving memoir, she discusses her life in Moscow as a student, a factory worker, an editor, and a young wife and mother. She provides a tragic and compelling account of the repressions of the 1930s, the chaotic evacuation of Moscow in 1941 as the Germans approached the city, the death of her baby girl in evacuation, and the growing anti-Semitism after the war.  At one point she shared a communal apartment with a young, very kind Vietnamese revolutionary who she later learned was Ho Chi Minh. The journey she narrates, from socialist idealism to bitter disillusion, was not abstractly political as it was for many but based on her intimacy with Soviet life.

By Mary M. Leder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Life in Stalinist Russia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The thoughtful memoirs of a disillusioned daughter of the Russian Revolution. . . . A sometimes astonishing, worm's-eye view of life under totalitarianism, and a valuable contribution to Soviet and Jewish studies." -Kirkus Reviews

"In this engrossing memoir, Leder recounts the 34 years she lived in the U.S.S.R. . . . [She] has a marvelous memory for the details of everyday life. . . . This plainly written account will particularly appeal to readers with a general interest in women's memoirs, Russian culture and history, and leftist politics." -Publishers Weekly

In 1931, Mary M. Leder, an American teenager, was attending…


Book cover of The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry

Wendy Z. Goldman Why did I love this book?

Most Western readers are familiar with the holocaust carried out by the Nazis in Europe, but know little about the almost two million Jews murdered by the Nazis in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. Here, the Germans embarked on a “holocaust by bullets,” rounding up the Jewish inhabitants, imprisoning them in camps and ghettos, and then shooting them at the edge of vast pits and ravines. 

Grossman and Ehrenburg, renowned Soviet war journalists and members of the Jewish Anti Fascist Committee, began collecting eyewitness testimonies and other documents during the war. Yet the Soviet state, following the policy, “we do not divide the dead,” refused to permit publication of the book they assembled because it was too focused on the particularity of Jewish suffering. The Complete Black Book, a powerful compilation of firsthand reports, is essential to understanding the full scope of the German campaign for Jewish annihilation.

By Ilya Ehrenburg, Vasily Grossman, David Patterson (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewryis a collection of eyewitness testimonies, letters, diaries, affidavits, and other documents on the activities of the Nazis against Jews in the camps, ghettoes, and towns of Eastern Europe. Arguably, the only apt comparism is to The Gulag Archipelago of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This definitive edition of The Black Book, including for the first time materials omitted from previous editions, is a major addition to the literature on the Holocaust. It will be of particular interest to students, teachers, and scholars of the Holocaust and those interested in the history of Europe.

By the end…


Explore my book 😀

Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front During World War II

By Wendy Z. Goldman, Donald Filtzer,

Book cover of Fortress Dark and Stern: The Soviet Home Front During World War II

What is my book about?

After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, German troops seized the heartland of Soviet industry and agriculture and turned the occupied territories into mass killing fields. The Red Army, overpowered by the blitzkrieg, fell back in disarray. Yet in contrast to the initial military disaster, the state's policies on the home front were far more effective. Fortress Dark and Stern chronicles this epic story: the evacuation of industry, rationing of a dwindling food supply, public health and epidemics, and the civilian labor draft. State propaganda, which changed over the course of the war, mobilized popular support through radio, art, poetry, and frontline journalism.  After Stalingrad, the liberation of the occupied territories brought new challenges of feeding and reincorporating a traumatized people into the war effort.

Fortress Dark and Stern examines the efforts of ordinary people who withstood starvation and horrific living conditions to provision the front lines and make the Allied victory over fascism possible. 

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The Peace Puppy: A Memoir of Caregiving and Canine Solace

By Susan Hartzler,

Book cover of The Peace Puppy: A Memoir of Caregiving and Canine Solace

Susan Hartzler Author Of The Peace Puppy: A Memoir of Caregiving and Canine Solace

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm an accomplished author, award-winning writer, seasoned blogger, and savvy Public Relations Consultant, but my true passion lies in being a die-hard dog lover. Due to the demands of my current pack of Australian Shepherds, Seven and Paige Turner, I’ve built a rewarding career working from home, writing dog-centric books, blogging for diverse clients, consulting in public relations, and creating dog-friendly travel stories. I also launched the online shop, “Dog Travel Gear,” where I share tips and adventures with fellow dog lovers on the blog, “Paws on the Go.”

Susan's book list on life with dogs

What is my book about?

As one of 67 million Americans who serve as caretakers to their elderly parents, Susan Hartzler cared for her dad for three years, gaining profound insight into Parkinson's disease and the multifaceted challenges of caregiving. Throughout this period, Hartzler's rescue dog, Baldwin, a precious gift from her late mom, provided unwavering support.

This memoir offers a personal roadmap for those facing similar caregiving decisions. Thoughtful, tragic, and funny, it shows that, while demanding, caregiving can be a fulfilling endeavor, especially with a dog by one's side. The author's story will better prepare others in similar situations and encourage them to…

The Peace Puppy: A Memoir of Caregiving and Canine Solace

By Susan Hartzler,

What is this book about?

In a role 67 million Americans face as caretakers to their elderly parents, Susan Hartzler cared for her dad for three years, gaining profound insight into Parkinson's disease and the multifaceted challenges of caregiving. Throughout this challenging period, Hartzler's rescue dog, Baldwin, a precious gift from her late mom, provided unwavering support.

This memoir offers a personal roadmap for those facing similar caregiving decisions. Thoughtful, tragic, and funny, it shows that while demanding, caregiving can be a fulfilling endeavor, especially with a dog by one's side. Hartzler's story will better prepare others in similar situations and encourage them to consider…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Soviet Union, refugees, and the Siege of Leningrad?

The Soviet Union 373 books
Refugees 146 books