In her
memoir
Battered
Heart,
Latvian-born
refugee
Aina
Segal
examines
the
effects
of war
on
ordinary
lives
changed
forever
by
world-shaking
political
events.
She
tells
her
story
with, at
times,
the
voice of
a child,
the life
experience
of an
adult,
and the
unique
perspective
of her
professional
training
as a
counselor.
Six
years
old when
the
nightmarish
journey
began,
moving
from one
DP camp
to the
next,
she
survived
by the
single-minded
strength
and
creativity
of her
mother
and,
when he
finally
found
them,
her
father.
As she
searches
for her
physical
and
emotional
home,
Segal
candidly
writes
of her
struggle
to find
her way
through
her life
as a
refugee,
a woman
and a
mother.
Her
survivor's
guilt,
conversion
to
Judaism,
and loss
of her
child
color
her
quest
and
eventual
finding
of love
and her
chosen
career.
Although
historically
the
story
begins
in the
1930s,
the
issues
and
experiences
are a
mirror
for
current
world
and
personal
events.
