Salt to the Sea

Title: Salt to the Sea

Author: Ruta Sepetys

Genre: YA fiction, historical fiction

Salt to the Sea is a YA historical fiction novel based on the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff . Never heard of it? Most people haven't since the end of World War II and the rise of communism throughout Europe overshadowed this tragedy. The Wilhelm Gustloff, former cruise liner turned military ship, was transformed from a German navy vessel to a refugee rescue ship. Normal capacity for this ship was around 1,500 but when the refugees boarded her on January 30, 1945, she held close to 10,000 people (a mixture of naval officers and crew, and refugees). When it sunk, close to 9,000 people died, more than the Titanic and Lusitania combined!

Salt to the Sea is told from the viewpoints of Joana (a Lithuanian nurse), Florian (a mysterious spy), Emilia (a pregnant Polish girl), and Alfred (an arrogant yet germaphobic German soldier, probably a psychopath). Joana is consumed by guilt over her cousin's disappearance and deportation to Siberia, Florian is consumed by revenge, Emilia has a secret, and Alfred is full of himself and Nazi ideology. Joana, Florian, and Emilia meet by accident and grudgingly travel together to Gotenhafen in an effort to secure safe passage to Western Europe and flee the invading Russian army. The perilous journey reveals many secrets and a bit of romance and the atmosphere of the book is tense throughout the text. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is told in gruesome, but not too graphic detail. You can read more about the disaster at the Smithsonian Magazine website (here) and the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum site (here). The book also contains the author's research resource list, book discussion questions, interviews with shipwreck divers who have explored the closely guarded wreckage, a journalist who investigated and published a book about the sinking and its aftermath, the curator of the Wilhelm Gustloff online museum, and a Wilhelm Gustloff survivor