Esther Hautzig

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Esther Hautzig (née Rudomin) (born October 18, 1930) is a Jewish-American writer, best known for her award-winning book The Endless Steppe (1968). She was born in Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania today). Her happy childhood was rudely interrupted by the advent of World War II and the conquest in 1941 of eastern Poland by Soviet troops. Her entire family was uprooted and deported to a town called Rubstovsk, Siberia, where Esther spent the next five years in harsh exile. The Endless Steppe is an autobiographical account of those years in Siberia.

After the end of the war, Esther and her family moved back to Poland when she was fifteen. She married Walter Hautzig, a concert pianist, and bore him two children, David and Debrah, both of whom grew up to be children's authors.