I think everybody should read this book. When I began it I warned others that it is about rape in wartime. And that is true. Any subject in a good author’s hands can be worth reading. It is the ability of the author to make that subject comprehensible to readers that distinguishes a good author. We know now who the anonymous writer of these diaries was. Her name is Marta Hillers. The German writer Kurt Marek was responsible for the initial publication of the book in 1954, in the United States. The author was anonymous. Only later was it published in Germany. Only after her death in 2003 was it revealed who the writer was.The book is based on the author’s diary accounts from the 20th of April to the 22nd of June 1945. It gives us a personal account of one woman’s experiences when the Red army occupied Berlin. Her story lets us understand what she and those around her experienced. What they lived through.
When I read this book I thought: I am being shown a world that I could never, ever imagine. It was beyond belief. The horror of it! Fear. Hunger. Being alone, completely alone. And it is hard to imagine that people can act as they do. It is important to read this book. We must acknowledge how people can behave. Yes, you and I can behave so deplorably too.
So then you will think, why should I read this? Why should I put myself through this? We must understand in our gut what has happened. A book like this makes us aware both in our head and in our stomach, both with clear thoughts and powerful emotions what another human being has experienced. And why is this important? It is important since it teaches us to not judge others. Before judging another you must put yourself in their shoes. This author has let us walk in her shoes. And the writing shows us how we human beings behave.
Yes, this book is about rape, but it is also about survival. It is about hunger too. The book begins with hunger and ends with hunger. How many of us reading this book has any real comprehension of being HUNGRY? Can we come to understand what we might do, what choices we might make if we were hungry as she was? You will understand her choices when you read this book. I will say it outright: in an effort to survive this woman realized that she needed to find a Russian that would provide her with food and safety. One’s chances of not being raped were minimal. If you are going to be raped anyway, why not make sure you get food in the bargain? By aligning yourself with a Russian of higher rank you could perhaps have him protect you from indiscriminate raping. But to understand the world she was living in you must read her words. When this book came out it was the women who were accused of bad behavior. The author was a survivor. I respect this woman. She was a journalist. She was well educated. She had traveled through Europe. She knew Russian. All of this is evident in her diary writing. She used her head and she survived. How can you look down on such a person? How can you criticize her if you have no idea what she has experienced?
You can only understand her choices by following her diary writings.
And the ending…. When her boyfriend comes back he doesn’t understand her actions. He too thinks she has degraded herself. We do not know if eventually they can bridge this incomprehension of what each has experienced in the war. I was so happy before her boyfriend came back. She had survived. I was so dam proud of her. I was crushed by his incomprehension. If he had read the book, he would maybe understand what she had gone through. If you read the book you will understand what she went through. If you read the book you will not judge others too quickly. I don’t think this book is terribly sad or depressing. I am so happy she survived. Dam, she is some strong woman, this author, Marta Hillers. She has let us see what happened to her. I admire her for surviving. I am so very glad she shared her experiences with us. I thoroughly understand her wish that the book have an anonymous author while she lived.
One does not read this book to find out if her boyfriend comes back. For this reason I do not think my telling you this is a “spoiler”. Only those of you wanting to understand another human being should bother to read this book. You have to want to get into their being. You have to want to become them in an effort to understand them and what they lived through.
There is a little boy at the end of the book who sees an old horse pulling a cart. He turns to his mother and says, “Mutti, can we eat the horse?” Earlier in the book another horse was still moving when he was cut into by hungry Berliners. Have you ever been that hungry? Do you have any idea how their world was? Do you want to understand their world? Read the book.
Be very careful before you judge another human being’s behavior.
I must add this. Although the subject matter is not light, the way the author expresses herself will make you smile. She calls herself the “automatic walking machine”, as she trudges to work….. This author can write. I wish I could copy parts of the book to show you, but I cannot use both Vocatex and Zoomtex at the same time. I need Vocatex to read the book and Zoomtex to write my review. When I am writing the review, I cannot read the book – so no quotes! This is so annoying to me.
