This Paperback Book item from Picador was reviewed on 4-Nov-2008.
Search ISBN:0312426119 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS Qualifying Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books All Deals Blowout Books Specialty Stores Books Biographies & Memoirs Blowout Books Specialty Stores Books Nonfiction Blowout Books . Click the following link to view the cover of A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary. Related topics: General AAS. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. All Deals. Blowout Books. Specialty Stores. Books. Blowout Books. Specialty Stores. requestid: 87df3afd-04ee-4aa0-b4fd-94a0f5d16146
requestprocessingtime: 0.0843260000000000
salesrank: 17244
numberofitems: 1
packagedimensions: 8080050550
1) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador. I no more got through the first chapter and knew that this was going to be a great read. The writing is effortlessly fluid and descriptive. The story is supposedly the memoir of a German women living in Berlin during War World II (the last part of WWII). She talks of her struggles to stay alive. As I mentioned before the book is incredibly depictive, and there for stirring at times. She does what she has to in order to keep food in her belly, a roof over her head, and clothes on her back - which includes befriending and bedding several Russians. This book is not for the faint of heart - she goes into detail about the violence, rape, and abuse that took place during the end of the war in Berlin. I found the book to be educational and a deferent point of view on WWII.¤ 2) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador. The diary records how a German woman lived, felt, thought, ate, slept, saw, heard and survived when Berlin fell in 1945. The descriptions are vivid. The language shows sophistication yet is easy to read. The author was a journalist. The diary records her first hand experiences as a person, not a journalist as a third party.
The diary records how ordinary civilians were paying the price of the crimes committed by their national leaders.
There are also reflections by the author, which are deep and thought provoking. The diary shows the strength of the author and other survivors and people´s abilities to adapt.
A good account of history and memories for later generations to reflect on.¤ 3) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador. I must admit after reading this woman´s diary, I was enlighten by the nature of her situation and the sheer impact of Nazi Germany after the fall of Berlin. The writing style is so "descriptive-of-the-events", it was personal and direct. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is missing their soul as a writer, this woman really speaks about truths in unique way where her words paint a vivid picture of harsh reality.¤ 4) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador. Despite all of my attentions paid to the history of man´s cruelty to man,
(and women), over the course of the past few decades, I have never exper-
ienced a more poignant accounting of same than that which "A Woman in Berlin" had to offer. The author´s physical survival and psychological victory over the most tragic circumstances imaginable is a testament to the power of applied intellect in the face of mindless savagery. Truly, this literary work is a wonderful testament to the strength of the female spirit and the durability of a pure human sole.¤ 5) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador. An intelligent, resilient, compassionate, resourceful woman chose to keep a diary during the dark days of the end of World War II in desolate, bombed-out Berlin, when the Soviet Red Army´s `liberation´ of the city included the rape of an estimated 100,000 German women, including the author herself. She chose to remain anonymous, and also shielded the identities of most of the fellow Germans around her.
The attitudes of the `Ivans´ who arrived in Berlin ranged from the ruthless bullies who gang-raped German women from age 14 to 74 at one extreme, to the older, more senior, more refined Red Army officers who treated the German vanquished with respect and even compassion. Alcohol consumption by the Red Army was a catalyst for rape, pillaging and destruction. The Nazis consciously left behind stores of alcohol, believing that an inebriated Red Army would be a less effective fighting force. The Nazis clearly failed to realize that the alcohol would fuel a wave of revenge and violence against its own female civilians.
The author and most Berliners were without water, electricity and decent food for weeks on end. Red Army soldiers would wander in and out of the Germans´ apartments, at all hours of the day and night, stealing whatever they wanted, grabbing and abusing the women, and defecating everywhere, indoors and out.
On the one hand, the Germans realized that they had this abuse coming to them, after the Nazi atrocities. "Our German calamity has a bitter taste - of repulsion, sickness, insanity, unlike anything in history" (page 257). On the other hand, the Germans fear and resent their liberators, who force them to work twelve hour days dismantling factories for shipment to Russia, with the only compensation being meager food rations. Out of hunger, many German women succumbed to the offer of food from the Red Army soldiers, in exchange for sleeping with them.
Despite living amid rubble and a largely hostile occupying army, the Berliners were remarkably calm and organized. Certainly there was looting by locals, and skirmishes in queues for water and food, but by and large the vanquished cooperated with one another. As the author wrote, she wanted to get busy in a constructive way, re-connect with herself spiritually, try to return to a normal life, to whatever extent that was possible. Berliners were mindful that they would no longer be masters of their own realm; rumors flew around that Germany was going to be converted into one huge field of potatoes. Berliners lived with discomfort and uncertainty during this period.
Gender roles were turned upside down at the end of the war. Erstwhile pompous Nazi men were now either dead, or emaciated and humiliated prisoners of war, or deserters in hiding, or elderly, hapless and hopeless as they watched or listened to their wives and daughters being raped. By contrast, the women took a lead role in cleaning up the ruined city, forming work crews to remove rubble.
Antony Beevor, author of "The Fall of Berlin 1945", states of "A Woman in Berlin" "... this book is one of the most important personal accounts ever written about the effects of war and defeat." I share his admiration for this book, and recommend it highly.
¤ 6) Paperback Book A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Picador.
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).
Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Dec-2008, 03124261199780312426118, 680-010-370-190-260-770-700-781-8 
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary, Book, Image © Picador
|
