The Great Water

Left alone after WWII, Lem is forcibly delivered to an orphanage. What should be a place of refuge actually turns out to be a harsh labor camp for children. Imprisoned within the camp's thick walls, Lem and his compatriots are brutally force-fed Stalinist propaganda. However, a ray of hope appears with the arrival of a mysterious young man who will radically change Lem's world. The story follows the childhood of Lem Nikodinoski. Now a high-ranking political figure in the communist government, an elderly Lem is rushed to a hospital fighting for his life. As he nears death, his only memories are of his life when he was twelve. The young Lem is an orphan in post-war Stalinist Yugoslavia (1945-1948), before President Tito's rift with the Soviet Union. It is an era of hostility to organized religion and punishment for those who fail to impose the communist hard-line. Captured by Communist party soldiers, Lem becomes a ward of state, sent to live in a brutal camp for political indoctrination of children of the "enemies of the communists." The camp is built in a medieval fortress beside a great lake, unseen from behind the fortress' high walls. Here Lem meets Isak, a mysterious fellow captive. The consequences of their friendship will set off a betrayal that will echo through the decades to Lem's last breath.