Journey to the Baobab Tree

A true story of courage, endurance and love. 'Hauntingly beautiful and compelling'.

Journey to the Baobab Tree is the true story of two children's epic journey from Eastern Poland to Siberia, their escape to Persia and finally to Africa during World War Two.

Alinka's family lived in a small river town in Eastern Poland where her father was chief of police. Witek's father was a forest keeper in the remote forest regions bordering Russia.

When the war began in September 1939, the Soviets, allied for the first two years of the war with the Nazis, invaded Eastern Poland and brutally deported over one and a half million Polish people in cattle trucks to the far ends of the Soviet Union. Alinka and Witek, both ten years old at the time, were among those taken. A million died in the deportations.

Against all odds, Witek and Alinka, in different parts of the Soviet Union, survived and escaped. They meet for the first time in Africa under a Baobab Tree.

Their gripping stories of those war years are narrated here in two parts, telling of resourcefulness, faith and humour even in the darkest times. They are truly unforgettable.