Eloquent, painful account of woman as a victim of war

A Woman in Berlin is a unique account of what happened when the Russian army seized Berlin at the end of World War Two. It is written by an educated woman in the form of a diary and hides nothing, indeed it is frank enough to have been banned for many years in Germany, and for the author to insist on anonymity. Her account could easily have been sensationalised, after all, the threat and the reality of rape permeates almost every page, but instead 'forced intercourse' becomes part of an everyday kaleidoscope of violence, destruction, drunkenness, hunger and hopelessness. Somehow the author survives all this chaos and desperation, and that is what the book is really about, survival when powerless. There is an undercurrent that deals with the failings of men: the collapse of the macho Nazi state run by arrogant men, and the lack of discipline and humanity in most, not all, of the invading Russian troops. By contrast most of the women portrayed here seem realistic, resourceful and resilient, with a determination to survive, summed up in the gallows humour: 'better a Russian on top than a Yank overhead'. This is a book that deserves to be widely read; we live in an age when there are worthy efforts to outlaw rape as part of war, but the experience of the Yazidis in the Middle East and the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Africa are just two examples that show little has changed so far. In fact our age exhibits increasing nationalism and racial tension. This author's brave and honest account of Berlin in 1945 provides an important perspective on where these tendencies will lead if not kept under control. And I have to reflect that I was born just four years after the events she describes. You have to ask: how can we reduce man's inhumanity to his fellow man, and, in particular, as highlighted dramatically in this book, his fellow woman.