Last Train to Freedom: A Young Jewish Family’s Escape from Behind the Iron Curtain

“... a spirited writer, Cherny reveals what life was like behind the Iron Curtain and the challenges and shocks she and her family faced in the US—a nation she fell in love with. Historians and casual readers will find her tales informative, fascinating, valuable, emotional, and inspirational.”

“An extraordinary insight into the fight for freedom; each page will take you on a journey as beautiful and profound as the author’s own.”

“People don’t just leave their home for no reason. And yet, two million Soviet Jews fled in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—and that’s after the two million who abandoned the Motherland, in fear of persecution and pogroms, at the turn of the twentieth century.” —Galina Cherny

Galina Cherny’s Last Train to Freedom is the riveting true story of her young family’s daring escape from the barbed wire borders of the USSR. It’s a raw tale of growing up in the Soviet Union. And a love story that defies all odds.

Born into a patriotic military family, her existence was constrained by the dull daily grind of the post-Stalin era, magnified by the fact that she was Jewish. Could a chance encounter in her beloved hometown Kiev, capital of then-Soviet Ukraine, change everything for the 21-year-old Galina? Is she willing to walk away from her life and never return? Betray her parents? Her country? The choice proves much harder than she ever imagined.

Through Galina, we learn of her family’s harrowing emigrant journey. The struggles, setbacks, and triumphs of starting life over in a foreign land. Will she ever be at home again?