The sheer tonnage of books rehashing the events of World War II could sink ten Titanics. Problematically, most of these accounts are bird's-eye-view retellings of the war in its totality, accounts which naturally neglect the streetside view of the devastation: homes, lives, careers. We know what Churchill thought, what Roosevelt thought, what Hitler thought, what Stalin thought. What about the common people: the shopworker, the office assistant, the train operator, the laundress? A Woman in Berlin is a wonderful and disturbing diary of one young woman's experiences in that war-torn city from April to June of 1945. She seemingly spares few details as she recounts her sufferings at the hands of vengeful Soviet soldiers occupying Berlin, her daily struggles to find food and employment in a bombed-out city, and her feelings for the man (Hitler) who got Germany into the mess. This volume deals with mature subjects, but I found it essential to humanizing the everyday victims of war the world over. (3/5 stars)
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous
The sheer tonnage of books rehashing the events of World War II could sink ten Titanics. Problematically, most of these accounts are bird's-eye-view retellings of the war in its totality, accounts which naturally neglect the streetside view of the devastation: homes, lives, careers. We know what Churchill thought, what Roosevelt thought, what Hitler thought, what Stalin thought. What about the common people: the shopworker, the office assistant, the train operator, the laundress? A Woman in Berlin is a wonderful and disturbing diary of one young woman's experiences in that war-torn city from April to June of 1945. She seemingly spares few details as she recounts her sufferings at the hands of vengeful Soviet soldiers occupying Berlin, her daily struggles to find food and employment in a bombed-out city, and her feelings for the man (Hitler) who got Germany into the mess. This volume deals with mature subjects, but I found it essential to humanizing the everyday victims of war the world over. (3/5 stars)
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