Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11885 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 311 pages

Kate Mosse
'one of the most powerful books I've ever read...the best money you'll ever spend'

Nina Bawden, Daily Mail
'This book, which could have been horrifying, is instead exhilarating: a rare tribute to the human spirit'

Viv Groskop, Sunday Express
'An extraordinary diary, an astounding piece of writing that we should be incredibly grateful survived...completely impossible to put down'

Customer Reviews

A fascinating piece of history
We are very fortunate that this anonymous woman kept a diary of the terrible events that happened to her and many other German women living in berlin at the end of WWII,because otherwise this is a part of history that would forever remain hushed up.
The author writed with total honesty and clarity,without any self pity and even with a touch of black humour.This is a really fascinating diary written using the authors journalistic talent.It's a shame she never received the credit she deserved for this important piece of history within her lifetime.

An essential book about Berlin in 1945
Other than fully endorsing what other reviewers have said about the power of this extraordinary account of the ending of the war in Berlin, from April 1945 and the next two or three months, I would simply draw attention to the immediacy of the writing.

It makes highly uncomfortable reading to be taken right into the dusty, half-lit, and stinking basements, where the writer and other people sheltered during the final days, or to travel with her as she makes her way on her bicycle through the rubble of the city, and, yes, to hear of how she copes (and she does cope) with the ordeal of repeated rape. But you finish the book with the strongest possible sense of her dignity, humanity, intelligence and sheer determination to survive. This is essential reading.

A shocking reminder...
I read this book keeping in mind not only the described facts by the (anonymous) author, but the terrible circumstances it was written under... in my opinion it is a very valuable document that tells us about the terrible (and wonderful) things we all are capable of under war conditions, perhaps useful to wake up and keep in mind the effects our actions have on other human beigns... in my opinion, a series of facts that must not be forgotten, ever. An excellent reading, no doubt, light and deep at the time...