Book Reviews

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A Woman in Berlin
Eight Weeks in the Conquered City
Anonymous
c. 2000
ISBN: 100805075402
Metropolitan Books
Henry Holt and Company
New York, NY
www.henryholt.com
261 pages, $23.00


A famous eye-witness account of an individual’s experience during World War II is the diary of a thirty-four year old woman who lived through the Soviet conquest of Berlin in 1945. Her diary, “A Woman in Berlin” describes eight weeks in her life as the city was captured. Many eye-witness accounts of the war have come out starting with the famous account of the totally innocent Anne Frank and continuing with accounts of more compromised combatants on all sides of the conflict, people who, for circumstances beyond their control, were swept up into the political movements that brought about the war. “Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief: Letters from Iwo Jima” is a recent example. This book contains the eye-witness experiences of a Japanese commander defending Iwo Jima from American attack. The hostilities of the war are now far enough distant that the Americans made a movie of the book.

“A Woman in Berlin” contains the thoughts of a thirty-four year old woman who probably was impressed with German success early in the War, but experienced, first hand, the consequences of such unjust aggression. Her comments about the war, now that it has caught up with her, are revealing. Her comment concerning Hitler: “No tree is too high to hang him.” Her comments concerning the moral values of Nazi Germany: “I long ago lost my childhood piety so that God and the Beyond have become mere symbols and abstractions.” “Why does a cross on a grave affect us if we no longer call ourselves Christian?”

The author reminisces about an earlier event before the war started with a young man in Paris. She was walking in a park when it began to rain. Seeking shelter under a tree, she met a young man who sought shelter there also. They start a very friendly conversation. Both of them realize that French is not their native tongue, but they understand each other well enough. When the rain stopped, they both left the shelter of the tree, still talking. On impulse, the author decided to walk in step with the young man, matching his pace. He immediately guessed: “You are Hitler’s daughter!” Then the young man told her he was a Dutch Jew. Thereafter they no longer had anything to say to each other. At the first opportunity, they took different forks in the paved walkway. This sad episode shows how easily political bias can override the natural friendliness between one person and another.

Nothing is known about what happened to the young Jew. The young German woman published her diary after the war in the 1950’s. Her diary was not well received in Germany. Humiliated, she then remained out of the public eye and never again offered her diary to the public. She survived to be ninety, dying in 2001. After her death, her diary was republished. Today, it serves as a reminder of the enormous price all human beings pay when any of us set hopes on anything not endorsed by the Almighty.

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