Tales From Behind The Iron Curtain Life Is A Story Story One

My family originates from Romania, where they spent the chaotic decades of the 20th century as members of the largest Hungarian minority. During the darkest years, the feared dictator, Nicolae Ceauescu governed socialist Romania, where people were merely striving to survive. But what was happening beyond the Iron Curtain? These twelve tales of mine, based on true stories, convey this message. "Then the Wall fell, holes were shot into the rotten heart of the dictatorships, but in my youth, the shadow of the Eastern Bloc still bared its iron fangs at me."

East and West collide in a “timely” and “bittersweet tale of loyalty, love, and the siren call of freedom” (Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times). Milena Urbanska is a red princess living in a Soviet satellite state in the 1980s. She enjoys limitless luxury and limited freedom; the end of the Cold War seems unimaginable. When she meets Jason, a confident but politically naive British poet, they fall into bed together. Before long, Milena is planning her escape. She follows Jason to London, where she’s shocked to find herself living in bohemian poverty. The rented apartment is dingy, the food disgusting, and Jason’s family withholding, but at least there are no hidden cameras recording her every move. As she adjusts to her new life, however, Milena discovers the dark side of Jason’s idea of freedom. With cool wit and tender precision, Vesna Goldsworthy delivers a razor-sharp vision of two worlds on the brink of change, amidst the failures of family and state. Iron Curtain is a sly, elegant comedy of manners that challenges the myths we tell ourselves.

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

Sensory Stories are short stories of a few lines which are brought to life through a selection of meaningful sensory experiences. They are particularly beneficial for people with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) and Autistic children or adults. Sensory stories are perfect for introducing new sensory environments in a safe, interactive way to help reduce associated anxieties and open up new avenues for communication and play. This updated edition is packed with original ready-to-use sensory stories, including 5 additional guest sensory stories by authors from around the world and your very own story template to create a sensory experience personalised for each person. With exclusive 'how to' video content and digital lesson plans, this book is the essential tool for introducing the transformative multi-sensory storytelling method into your home, classroom or group setting. Using everyday items and step-by-step instructions to make incorporating sensory stories accessible and simple, it has never been easier to create inclusive and fun sensory experiences to enhance the lives of those with additional needs.

Sensory Stories are short stories of a few lines which are brought to life through a selection of meaningful sensory experiences. They are particularly beneficial for students with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other special educational needs (SEN). For children with PMLD, Sensory Stories can open up new avenues for communication and inclusive learning. For students with SPD and ASD, they offer a fun way of encountering sensory experiences and triggers in a safe, repetitive way, which over time can help to reduce associated anxieties. This accessible guide offers teachers, other professionals working with students with SEN and parents with a complete step-by-step guide to creating and using Sensory Stories effectively. Aiming to make Sensory Stories affordable and accessible to schools and parents alike by using everyday items found in the classroom and home, Joanna Grace provides original, ready-to-use Sensory Stories with accompanying lesson plans, games and activities and adaptations for different abilities and diagnoses. Written by an experienced SEN consultant and sensory learning specialist, this is unique and essential reading for teachers, other professionals and parents wishing to introduce the many benefits of multi-sensory storytelling to children in their care.

While the world was reading one story, God was writing another. In 1977, amidst the bitterly cold days of the frigid Cold War, a young couple responded to God’s dramatic call on their lives to go and live covertly behind The Iron Curtain. Filled with faith and buffeted by fear, they left the familiarity of family and the security of NATO to locate behind enemy lines inside Communist Poland in order to establish a Kingdom beachhead of evangelism and discipleship. From award-winning author Debby Thompson, Pulling Back the Iron Curtain is a collection of personal and intimate stories revealing a firsthand account of that unique assignment. Now, with authenticity and vulnerability, this pioneer missionary makes known to the world the tender and dramatic workings of God even behind the Iron Curtain.

During the Cold War, stories of espionage became popular on both sides of the Iron Curtain, capturing the imagination of readers and filmgoers alike as secret police quietly engaged in surveillance under the shroud of impenetrable secrecy. And curiously, in the post-Cold War period there are no signs of this enthusiasm diminishing. The opening of secret police archives in many Eastern European countries has provided the opportunity to excavate and narrate for the first time forgotten spy stories. Cold War Spy Stories from Eastern Europe brings together a wide range of accounts compiled from the East German Stasi, the Romanian Securitate, and the Ukrainian KGB files. The stories are a complex amalgam of fact and fiction, history and imagination, past and present. These stories of collusion and complicity, betrayal and treason, right and wrong, and good and evil cast surprising new light on the question of Cold War certainties and divides.

Join pastor and bestselling author Charles Swindoll as he explores the lives of 13 biblical hidden figures whose stories have remained in the shadows of history for long enough. Somehow life has taught us poorly. We're trained to think that the most significant people are star athletes, actors, and musicians--the ones we applaud, those whose autographs we seek, or those who have worldly fame. But Swindoll teaches us that most often, the people really worth noting are those who turn from a 'nobody' into a 'somebody' but never receive credit. Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives reminds us of a core truth: success in God's kingdom and in the church depends upon faithful people the public rarely knows. The Old Testament contains numerous fascinating stories of forgotten lives--unsung heroes whose actions, sacrifices, or battles failed to ascribe them worldly applause. These great lives, however, reveal significant people whom God honors in the pages of His Word and, therefore, deserve our serious attention and emulation. From the misfortunes of Esau to the bravery of Abigail, each of these unlikely heroes has four unique elements in common: A selfless sense of devotion A mission A love of harmony A contagious joy Join Swindoll in this eighth volume of the bestselling Great Lives from God's Word series as he examines little-remembered Bible characters and events, helping you discover biblical principles and practical applications for living so that you can be who you already are in God's eyes--a person of true significance.