The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig is an autobiographical account of her life in exile. In 1941, Russian soldiers came to Esther's house in Vilna, Poland and took her grandmother, her father, her mother, and herself and crammed them into a cattle car for six weeks while heading toward an unknown destination. They survived on only bread, soup, and water. The house Esther and her family were taken from was a large house with six separate apartments all filled with family members: her paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. All other family members were left behind and eventually died in or were brutally murdered in concentration camps.

Esther and her family were deported to Siberia where they spend the next five years fighting to stay alive. They never had enough food so they were always hungry; they did not have the proper shelter or warm clothes so...