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sarah_ayed's review against another edition
3.0
"أفعال جنودنا هناك لا تختلف كثيرا عما فعله الروس هنا"
عن قذارة الحرب
عن قذارة الحرب
erboe501's review against another edition
5.0
This is the kind of book that will haunt you for a very long time after putting it down. The diary of a young woman in the summer of 1945 (from the days before Russian occupation of Berlin through peace) is honest and unflinching in its narration of the atrocities of war. Historians estimate that 100,000 women were raped after the occupation of Berlin. All of those women have names and stories, and this book brings to light some of those women and how they dealt with unimaginable terror, often with gallows humor and resilience.
I don't understand why this book isn't more widely taught in history classes, at least in excerpts. True, teachers need to be sensitive about triggering sexual assault victims. But I think it's important that we think about this topic when we talk about WWII. There is so much complexity here. The Germans were the "bad guys" and the Russians were part of the Allies--but the Russian soldiers' treatment of women is despicable. It's not even as easy as calling the Russians evil, because some of the soldiers our journalist encountered were kind. She admits, as did many of the women who were raped, that their own German soldiers had likely done similar things earlier in the war. The journalist clearly considered herself intellectually superior to the Communist Russian peasants. They're animalistic and uncouth, but they're the victors.
An important thing to take away from this book is that there is so much more nuance to the "good versus evil" battle that WWII is often made out to be. The journalist adds more shades to a black and white picture. The German civilians didn't deserve what they went through, but they also participated in, or at least remained passive during, an atrocious regime. The journalist was shocked and ashamed of her people when she heard about the concentration camps. Most of the civilians she encountered during the occupation blamed Hitler for their current situation and felt like fools for following him.
From a Women's Studies perspective, there's a goldmine of reflections on the degeneration of German masculinity. German men had no power to stop the raping of their women. Many German women began to see men as the weaker sex. As a result, German men didn't want to hear or talk about rape after the war. Because they failed their women, they demanded silence about their failure.
It was sometimes hard to remember, or, in fact believe, that this wasn't fiction. The level of detail makes it seem like a story. But this really happened to real people. What haunts me is wondering what happened to our journalist when she ended her journal. Thanks to a 21st-century reprinting, this story is available to a wider public that, in light of today's rape culture and talk of war, could really use a wakeup call and a reminder that good and evil are a mixed bag.
I don't understand why this book isn't more widely taught in history classes, at least in excerpts. True, teachers need to be sensitive about triggering sexual assault victims. But I think it's important that we think about this topic when we talk about WWII. There is so much complexity here. The Germans were the "bad guys" and the Russians were part of the Allies--but the Russian soldiers' treatment of women is despicable. It's not even as easy as calling the Russians evil, because some of the soldiers our journalist encountered were kind. She admits, as did many of the women who were raped, that their own German soldiers had likely done similar things earlier in the war. The journalist clearly considered herself intellectually superior to the Communist Russian peasants. They're animalistic and uncouth, but they're the victors.
An important thing to take away from this book is that there is so much more nuance to the "good versus evil" battle that WWII is often made out to be. The journalist adds more shades to a black and white picture. The German civilians didn't deserve what they went through, but they also participated in, or at least remained passive during, an atrocious regime. The journalist was shocked and ashamed of her people when she heard about the concentration camps. Most of the civilians she encountered during the occupation blamed Hitler for their current situation and felt like fools for following him.
From a Women's Studies perspective, there's a goldmine of reflections on the degeneration of German masculinity. German men had no power to stop the raping of their women. Many German women began to see men as the weaker sex. As a result, German men didn't want to hear or talk about rape after the war. Because they failed their women, they demanded silence about their failure.
It was sometimes hard to remember, or, in fact believe, that this wasn't fiction. The level of detail makes it seem like a story. But this really happened to real people. What haunts me is wondering what happened to our journalist when she ended her journal. Thanks to a 21st-century reprinting, this story is available to a wider public that, in light of today's rape culture and talk of war, could really use a wakeup call and a reminder that good and evil are a mixed bag.
emj03's review against another edition
5.0
I couldn’t give this book less than five stars, the horrors that many German women faced in the weeks and months during the post-war era was astronomical. The Russian ‘liberation’ of Berlin came with other horrors, taking advantage of mothers and their daughters - not taking their age into account. The anonymous author of this book did not want it to be published until after her death, as the first attempt of publishing her diaries did not go down well. Imagine writing about the experiences you went through just to be shut down by others.
Page 162 states that ‘Russian soldiers helped themselves to what was left of the alcohol’, and a woman described her Russian encounter in complete, heart wrenching detail.
Yes a lot of these women followed the Hitler regime, but that does not take away from the fact that these women did not face struggles. Some also denounced their German propaganda once they realised the extent of how things were exaggerated, but it was a bit late for that as the damage of Nazism had left its mark on a war-torn Germany.
There was one quote I found that stuck with me, it was on page 283, the author wrote that the people she saw were ‘Half-dead sacks of bones’, on 297 the stench of death was a common thing as bodies were ‘exhumed [...] to be reinterred in a cemetery’ and disease such as typhus and dysentery were rife.
If you have any interest in war/social history this is the book to read. It’s heartbreaking and you sympathise with the people and what they went through.
Page 162 states that ‘Russian soldiers helped themselves to what was left of the alcohol’, and a woman described her Russian encounter in complete, heart wrenching detail.
Yes a lot of these women followed the Hitler regime, but that does not take away from the fact that these women did not face struggles. Some also denounced their German propaganda once they realised the extent of how things were exaggerated, but it was a bit late for that as the damage of Nazism had left its mark on a war-torn Germany.
There was one quote I found that stuck with me, it was on page 283, the author wrote that the people she saw were ‘Half-dead sacks of bones’, on 297 the stench of death was a common thing as bodies were ‘exhumed [...] to be reinterred in a cemetery’ and disease such as typhus and dysentery were rife.
If you have any interest in war/social history this is the book to read. It’s heartbreaking and you sympathise with the people and what they went through.
annecarts's review against another edition
5.0
There's not much history written by the losers, let alone ordinary civilians and women. This diary written about the fall of Berlin is horrendous but also a look at what strategies people will put in place to survive.
It's also worth looking at the story behind this diary and how the author was shamed into not publishing it again in German until after her death.
It's also worth looking at the story behind this diary and how the author was shamed into not publishing it again in German until after her death.
ilovestory's review against another edition
4.0
Marta lived through WWII in Berlin, and writes bravely and without shame of what it was like to survive the eight weeks at the end of the War when Berlin was captured by the Soviets, and what she had to do to survive. Some women were able to hide out in crawl spaces but she had no one to help bring her whatever meager food or water could be found; she had to find a way to survive with no help, and she did, and she writes with truth her experiences. The smell of rotting corpses, the hunger, not having any control over what may happen to her in this new world of defeat, but living in the moment the best she could, which meant hunting for nettles to eat, finding a Soviet "protector" so that she at least could be raped by only one man rather than multiple, random men and perhaps even get some bread or wine out of it. Well-written, moving, important story to read.
teacupandsaucer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
kris45's review against another edition
Searing, visceral, with sharp observations of humanity and a stoic bitterness. Perhaps not the best choice to read in the beginning weeks of a world pandemic. But then, it does bring an awareness that things could be even worse than they are.