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To: gleeaikin

There are many good books about the fall of Berlin in 1945. Antony Beevor’s book and Anthony Read’s book and Cornelius Ryan’s book are all recommended.


106 posted on 09/24/2022 10:34:30 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule. )
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To: ought-six; Greetings_Puny_Humans; Widget Jr; familyop; PIF; UMCRevMom@aol.com; marcusmaximus; ...

I beleve I read this book in the 1960s. I found out about my greataunts deaths at a later time.

“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).” [I remember the writer partially protected herself by developing a liaison with a not viscious Russian officer.]

Another piece of family history I learned was about other more distant relatives who successfully escaped from East Prussian area by crossing the Baltic in winter in a horse and sled. This was a family group with women and children. Many broke through the ice and died trying to escape the Russians.


116 posted on 09/24/2022 11:40:00 AM PDT by gleeaikin (Question authority! .)
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