When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption
by Wesley Adamczyk

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Book Reviews of When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption

Book Review: But God Never Looks the Other Way
Summary: 4 Stars

A British reader may be forgiven thinking that the British are ungenerously treated here. Whilst expressly (and rightly) qualifying his contempt of the Soviets with accounts of acts of individual generosity and kindness by Russians, no such words are lost on the British people after the war. Despite blaming the Allied nations for "complicity" in the massacre of Polish PoWs at the hands of the NKVD at Katyn and for abandoning the Polish Nation at the end of the war, Adamczyk's treatment of the British and Americans could not be more different. The treatment of the American people is generous and grateful whereas the author's view of the British is particularly ungracious - he describes refugees having defiled the Aquitania with human excrement and apparently shares their "resentment" of the British without ever explaining his grievance.

One cannot fail to be moved by the enormous personal suffering endured by the author and his family - or to marvel at the courage, particularly of Anna Adamczyk, the author's mother - but there is a child-like lack of maturity in some aspects of this narrative. It is not always clear who is writing, the child or the adult writer. Adamczyk states that, following a tour of London "I began to have a clearer idea of how badly the British had suffered, and my attitude toward them softened as a result" but never explains what grievance against the British people he has.

The shortest chapter in this book is entitled "Making Peace with God" and this too lacks maturity (one paragraph involves the author curiously thanking himself). This chapter and the title reflect the narrator's inability to deal with some of the themes of this book raises and it is questionable whether it was right of the author to tackle subjects rather than sticking to the narrative. Evil; the inextinguishable nature of good; mankind's relationship with God; free will - one cannot help but conclude that this book applies a cursory and inadequate glance at these issues.

It is a pity that the book skips most of the author's adult life in the United States. The subtitle ("An Odyssey of War, Exile and Redemption") is really unsubstantiated, since the "redemption" is never really revealed to the reader. The choice of the words "redemption" and "odyssey" both appear somewhat misplaced - redemption implying something spiritual (which appears almost entirely lacking in the narrative) and it seems singularly inappropriate to describe the events which are depicted as an "odyssey".

Nevertheless, a personal, powerful and graphic account of the triumph of hope over adversity.

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