In 1939 Hitler's tyranny approaches western Poland. A prosperous Jewish family-Julius and Josefina Kohn and their two teenaged children Peter and Suzanna-flee their homeland embarking on an unexpected odyssey of six-thousand arduous miles. They evade Nazi capture only to be arrested by the Soviets who have invaded Poland from the east. Deported to northern Russia they endure savage conditions during eighteen months of forced labor in a prison camp where death lurks around every corner. When Hitler breaks a secret pact with Stalin and the Nazis invade the USSR the release of Polish prisoners in the Soviet Gulag is negotiated. The Kohn family's journey continues from Russia to Central Asia and across the Caspian Sea to Persia. Now in a foreign land as impoverished refugees their hometown occupied by the Nazis and their relations friends and neighbors displaced across the world can they discover generosity hope and even love in Tehran?

From award-winning author Kim Dana Kupperman this dramatic novel inspired by a true story occurs during one of the Holocaust's lesser-known episodes the deportation into the Soviet Gulag of 1.5&ndash2 million Polish citizens at the start of World War II.

Afterword by Rabbi Zvi Dershowitz

Kim Dana Kupperman is the author of The Last of Her: A Forensic Memoir (2017) and the critically acclaimed essay collection I Just Lately Started Buying Wings (2010). She is the lead editor of YOU: An Anthology of Essays Dedicated to the Second Person (2013) and publisher of Essaying the Essay (2015). The founder of Welcome Table Press she has been a writer editor and teacher for over thirty years. From 2004-2011 she was managing editor of the award-winning quarterly The Gettysburg Review where she also developed and coordinated an annual writer's conference. She has taught in creative writing programs at Johns Hopkins Fordham University West Virginia Wesleyan Fairfield University and Montgomery College. She is currently working on a nonfiction sequel/prequel to Six Thousand Miles about four Jewish siblings who lived through World War I and survived the Holocaust. She teaches private workshops in creative writing. For more information please visit www.kimdanakupperman.com.

"A fascinating story of a little-known chapter of the Second World War. It's a tale of love and war of unimaginable cruelty and unexpected kindness-hard to put down difficult to forget." - Gina Nahai author of The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. and Caspian Rain

"Here are the wages of authenticity: both the pervasive horror of a murderous era and the threatened yet valiant current of humanity. Kupperman puts you there-you see and hear and feel-and realize how a journey into the unimaginable occurs. An inspiring and remarkable tale."- Baron Wormser author of Tom o' Vietnam and Legends of the Slow Explosion

"An enthralling historical novel both tender and terrifying about survival tradition and love. A Breathtaking rendering of unforgettable characters."- Eugenia Kim author of The Calligrapher's Daughter and The Kinship of Secrets

"Six Thousand Miles to Home illuminates the historical record and conjures a world of man-made horror where every so often cracks of exquisite light are made to shine through."- Rachel Basch author of The Listener The Passion of Reverend Nash and Degrees of Love