Between Shades of Gray 100-200

The convoy of deportees stopped in a farming area. Everyone was ordered to get off here and were told that they were to live here. People were already living in the makeshift huts, but they had to share. Lina and her family get to share a hut with a grumpy lady that makes them pay rent. The next day Lina's mother gets sent to the commander's office. She comes back later and tells them that the NKVD wanted her to work for them by being a translator and spying on people's conversations. She declined the offer, even though she was promised more food and better treatment if she did. Early the next morning, the NKVD divide up the deportees for work detail. Lina and her mother got sent off to dig holes, while Jonas got sent to make shoes. The officers told them that the amount of food they receive depends on how much they accomplish. After many hours of digging holes in the rain, they return to the hut to find saved rainwater. Andrius meets up with Lina and tells her information about the Soviets that only he knows, then gives her cigarettes for her mother and Jonas. During that night, the NKVD gathered everyone into the kolkhoz office, which is the commander's office. The commander told them that they were to sign a document they agree to join this farm, to pay a war tax, and to agree that they were criminals. The documents also said their sentence would be twenty-five years' hard labor for being criminals against the USSR. After discussion, they decided to not sign any documents. A standoff took place throughout the night until morning, when it was time to get back to work. Lina and her mother went back to work digging holes. The commander came out and tried to scare them by halfway burying them in the holes they dug. When they got back to the hut, Lina's mother went to talk to Andrius. Lina followed Andrius after their talk to see where he sleeps. She found out that he sleeps in the NKVD building and accuses him and his mother of working with the Soviets. The next time Lina and Andrius meet, she brings it up. He tells her that they threatened to kill him unless his mother slept with them. After a couple more nights sitting in the commander's office, some of the people gave in and signed the document. Those who did were able to go to the nearby village. People bribed the ones who could to mail letters out to loved ones. In the following weeks of waiting for a reply to the letters, Lina has to draw a map and a man for the NKVD and Jonas had made boots for the family for the upcoming winter. Mrs. Rimas was the first one to get a letter back. It said that the Germans had invaded Lithuania, that her husband was alive, and it had a bible reading in it. In the following week, Jonas had become ill. A man diagnosed it as scurvy and that he needs nourishment if he was to survive. Their mother does everything she can to get food and water to Jonas.