A Woman in Berlin
Subtitle: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary
Publisher: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt
Published: July 11, 2006
Language: eng
Translated from: ger
Translation of: Eine Frau in Berlin. Tagebuchaufzeichnungen vom 20. April bis 22. Juni 1945
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 261
ISBN-13: 9780312426118
Description: A Woman in Berlin is a memoir by German journalist Marta Hillers, originally released anonymously in 1954. The identity of Hillers as the author was not revealed until 2003, after her death.
Notes: 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).

Source: Publisher