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.
Description:
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.