A terrifying true story of kidnap, torture and dramatic rescue by the FBI and the KGB. Chechen terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda orchestrate a Moscow abduction, holding westerners Yvonne and her husband Danny hostage for $1.6 million they don't have. It will take enormous courage and an international rescue effort to bring them home. ELEVEN DAYS OF HELL is the chilling true story of kidnap, torture, rape and survival. Yvonne Bornstein relives the trauma that still has the power to make her shake with fear.
Born Yvonne Shilkin in Western Australia, the author of this debut memoir failed to get a start as a singer, survived one divorce and the murder of a fiancé, then married businessman Daniel Weinstock. As Bornstein tells it in this tabloid-style account, in 1992 they set out to make a killing exporting Western consumer goods to the newly opened Russian economy. Unfortunately, their Russian partner was a criminal, which eventually led to Yvonne and Daniel being kidnapped and held outside of Moscow, separately, for $1.6 million ransom total. Their prospects looked bleak, as cooperation between Russian and Western law enforcement authorities was negligible, but a shrewd Russian lawyer in the U.S. established communication between the FBI and the KGB. United efforts led to a rescue; the captors eventually got off with six months for racketeering; the marriage ended a few years later in divorce.
This true story is simply told, and although the most brutal parts are not graphically described, what we are told is more than enough to understand the meaning of Primo Levi's words, "I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man."
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