Rika’s Stories From The Other Side are author Erika Babcock’s memories of a time that befell the world like a terrible epidemic and struck hardest those ordinary people who won nothing but suffered losses of health, life, home and loved ones.

Babcock remembers starvation, evacuations, bomb attacks, a broken marriage, love affairs, an abortion without anesthesia by a doctor later convicted of mass murder, hospital work amid pain and wounds, and the constant threat of sickness, cold and hunger.

She also remembers the gallows humor and the laughter without which no one can survive such hardships.

On September 1, 1939, World War II started in Germany, and Babcock’s whole hometown of Saarbruecken on the French border was forcibly evacuated - “obey or be shot like spies without trial.” Fate chased her around Europe: Germany, France and Poland. Finally, the advancing Russian army drove her back to the ruins of her homeland.