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A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary
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Product Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. "With bald honesty and brutal lyricism" (Elle), the anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. "Spare and unpredictable, minutely observed and utterly free of self-pity" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject--the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.
A Woman in Berlin stands as "one of the essential books for understanding war and life" (A. S. Byatt, author of Possession).
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #60120 in Books
- Published on: 2006-07-11
- Released on: 2006-07-11
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: .58 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Anonymous, then a 34-year-old journalist, started this eight-week diary in April 1945, when the Russians were invading Berlin and the city's mostly female population was heading to its cellars to wait out the bombing. Anyone who was able looted abandoned buildings for food of any kind. Soon the Russians were everywhere; liquored-up Russian soldiers raped women indiscriminately. After being raped herself, Anonymous decided to "find a single wolf to keep away the pack." Thanks to a small series of Russian officers, she was better fed and better protected at night. Her story illustrates the horror war brings to the lives of women when the battles are waged near a home front (rather than a traditional battlefield). In retrospect, she advises women victimized by mass rape to talk to each other about it. Once the war was officially over, the real starvation began; by the time the author's soldier boyfriend returned to Berlin, she was too hungry and hurt to deal with him. When the radio reported concentration camp horrors, she was pained but unable to quite take it in. The author, who died in 2001, has a fierce, uncompromising voice, and her book should become a classic of war literature. First published in 1954, it was probably too dark for postwar readers, German or Allied. Now, after witnessing Bosnia and Darfur, maybe we are finally ready. New translation includes previously untranslated portions. (Aug. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The author of this diary was a 34-year-old journalist, now deceased, who consistently refused to reveal her identity publicly. She spoke some Russian and seemed liberal in outlook. Her chronicle was first published in 1953; after remaining dormant, it was republished 50 years later in Germany. This stunning account covers the period from late April to mid-June 1945, beginning with the massive Soviet bombardment of Berlin and ending with the opening weeks of the Soviet occupation. The author is a keen observer of the ironies, even the absurdities, of a collapsing society, but this is a work of great power. At times, one can virtually smell the fear as people cower in basements as the bombardment intensifies. When Russian troops arrive, they are, at first, comically playful as they seem intent on accumulating watches and bicycles. Then the rapes begin and there are scenes of casual but horrifying brutality. The author recounts her own rape with an unsettling detachment. This is a devastating and rare glimpse at ordinary people who struggle to survive. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A tract essential for our often morally fuzzy times . . . It is destined to be a classic."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Let Anonymous stand witness as she wished to: as an undistorted voice for all women in war and its aftermath, whatever their names or nation or ethnicity. Anywhere."--Los Angeles Times
"An astonishing record of survival . . . the voice of Anonymous emerges as both shrewd and funny . . . a fresh contribution to the literature of war."--Entertainment Weekly (grade: A)
"A richly detailed, clear-eyed account of the effects of war and enemy occupation on a civilian population . . . She has written, in short, a work of literature, rich in character and perception."--Joseph Kanon, The New York Times Book Review
"A riveting account of a military atrocity . . . The author doesn't try to explain or moralize the horror. She simply records it as perhaps no one else has, in all of its devastating essence."--The New York Observer
"Unflinchingly honest . . . Its frank documentation of German suffering--the hunger and uncertainty as well as the widespread rape--illuminates a subject whose worldwide taboo is just beginning to subside."--The Village Voice
"A brilliant and powerful work."--Newsday
"What makes the book an essential document is its frank and unself-conscious record of the physical and moral devastation that accompanied the war. . . . The diarist's emotional register remains unfailingly calm. Her dispassionate chronicle of the disasters of war suggests a kind of stoic heroism. . . . Remarkable."--Salon.com
"A stunning account of a German woman's battle to survive repeated rape at the hands of the victors among the ruins of Berlin . . . While leaders plot their dreams of glory and victory, the lives of ordinary people--on all sides--are trampled and destroyed. A most salutary work."--David Hare, The Guardian (U.K.)
"The author has a fierce, uncompromising voice, and her book should become a classic of war literature."--Publishers Weekly
"Books can transform us. So very few do. A Woman in Berlin is one that can."--Dayton Daily News
"A work of great power . . . The author is a keen observer of the ironies, even the absurdities, of a collapsing society. . . . A devastating and rare glimpse at ordinary people who struggle to survive."--Booklist
"With the passage of time, Anonymous's perspective--and the extraordinary way she kept her dignity and moral sense alive in an inferno--have made her diary a war classic."--Maclean's (Toronto)
"Marvelous . . . As it is a human instinct to survive, this book, which could have been horrifying, is instead exhilarating: a rare tribute to the human spirit."--Daily Mail (U.K.)
"Coolly written, tearingly honest . . . This is a classic not only of war literature but also of writing at the very extreme of human suffering."--The Daily Telegraph (London)
