Part his­to­ry, part auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Walk­ing Since Day­break tells the trag­ic sto­ry of the Baltic nations before, dur­ing, and after World War II. Per­son­al sto­ries of the sur­vival or destruc­tion of Mod­ris Ekstein­s’s fam­i­ly mem­bers lend an inti­mate dimen­sion to this vast nar­ra­tive of those mil­lions who have surged back and forth across the low­lands bor­der­ing the Baltic Sea. The immense cat­a­clysm of World War II dev­as­tat­ed the Baltic republics of Lithua­nia, Latvia, and Esto­nia, send­ing many of their inhab­i­tants to the ends of the earth. WALK­ING SINCE DAY­BREAK belongs in the great tra­di­tion of books that rede­fine our under­stand­ing of his­to­ry. Ekstein­s’s two-pronged nar­ra­tive is a haunt­ing por­trait of nation­al loss and the strug­gle of a dis­placed fam­i­ly caught in the maw of history.