Junior Ethan Pender was named Darlington's winner of the Rome News-Tribune's annual One Book, Many Voices writing contest. This year, hundreds of area students submitted entries about Ruta Sepetys' "Between Shades of Grey."
Winners were selected from each area high school that had students entered in the contest. All winners had an opportunity to meet the author at a private reception before her talk on Sept. 26 at Rome City Auditorium.
Read the full text of Pender's essay below:
The major injustices done to Lina Vilkas, her family and friends, and the people of the Baltic countries during WWII are unimaginable in today’s American society. Luckily in the United States, we have a stable system of government that would never allow a dictator to gain absolute power and torture neighboring countries.
As for Lina, though, she was only a stone’s throw away from the aggressive, and ever-expanding Soviet Union. With the ruthless Joseph Stalin at the helm, the USSR had no problem invading surrounding countries and jailing anyone who might question the unethical means of the government. Lina’s father, Kostas Vilkas, and his family were of the educated class. As he was a professor, the government saw his intellectual mind as a threat to communist ideals and decided to deport him and his family to Siberia.
As a teenager who was born and raised in the United States, I cannot possibly fathom what this would feel like. In America, the basic understanding of checks and balances reminds me of the constant change of power that keeps the republic alive and well. Also, knowing that America has a large army and large military budget gives me a strong sense of security. Because of these benefits of American life, I have no idea what it would be like to have my entire country invaded and family ripped apart, so I cannot accurately say how I would react in Lina’s position.
Though I may not have a crisis management plan ready for a dilemma such as Lina’s, I do have a simple one: survive. Survival, a basic natural instinct, pushes humans in the most perilous of situations to carry on despite the misfortunes that are forced upon them. For me, survival would mean simply do the work the Soviets had for me, eat the meager rations, and hope each day for a better future. I certainly would not help the Soviets, but I would not want to instigate them. This entire scenario represents my feelings if I were in Lina’s shoes specifically. I would stand and fight the USSR before they could take me to a work camp. I have neither enlisted in the military nor have I ever seen battle personally, but I do not have to experience either of these to know that I would happily take up arms for, and die for, my country if push came to shove.
At the end of the day, survival would prevail as my primary course of action. I believe that working, eating what little rations I had, and returning home unharmed at the end of it all would be my plan. As unhappy as I would be with the atrocious treatment of the prisoners including myself, I would at least be home, in my native country. As war-torn as it would be, it would still be home.
