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A riveting account of the part Russian composer Shostakovich played in the Siege of Leningrad from award-winning author M. T. Anderson. From internationally acclaimed YA author M. T. Anderson comes the true story of a city under siege, thrillingly told and impeccably researched. In September 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history. After three years of bombardment and starvation, culminating in the bitterly cold winter of 1943–44, more than a million citizens lost their lives. In order to survive, many residents burned books, furniture and floorboards to keep warm; they ate family pets and, eventually, each other. In the midst of this bloodshed, Dimitri Shostakovich composed the Leningrad Symphony, a piece that both rallied and eulogized his fellow citizens ... and which would come to play a surprising part in the Allies' eventual victory.