I thought I knew all there was to know about World War II but history teaches us that there is always something more to learn.
If you’ve read The Diary of Anne Frank, you understand the real uncertainty that comes from living through a war. The fear, the chaos, and the constant anxiety that comes from not knowing if you’re going to live or die.
Earlier this year I read and profiled Fire in Every Direction which isn’t about the generational (and seemingly never-ending) war between the Israelis and the Palestians but the outcome of the resulting displacement.
If war is the mark of failure then surely the ending of a war is the mark of success.
But that’s where my learning this time began.
The Voice of the Survivor
What began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, changed the course of human history. Tom Hanks recently said, “it was the largest event in human history.”
The war ended with the unconditional German surrender on May 8, 1945, has been written about and had movies produced to share the stories of lives lost and the generations of human lives ruined.
It took less than a year from D-Day to V-E Day, but victory came at a tremendous, and in historic fashion, unknown cost.
In A Woman in Berlin, an anonymous journalist chronicles the end of the war in Berlin as the Red Army “liberates” the city.
But liberation didn’t come with immediate ticker-tape parades and celebration in the streets.
[…] we were taught to admire their heroism. And I’m sure that if you looked hard enough you could find three hundred German soldiers willing to do the same. But not three million. The larger the force and the more random it composition, the less chance of its members opting for textbook heroism. We women find it senseless to begin with; that’s just the way we are — reasonable, practical, opportunistic. We prefer our men alive.
Days before the Red Army pushed into Berlin, rumors began swirling in the bakery and in the underground bunkers that housed and protected families against the final stand of the Nazi regime, that the Russian troops were coming and they were taking women as they pleased. (Yes, read between the lines.)
These troops were liberating the city and pressing towards victory all right, but they were also leaving a trail of abuse, plundering, and rape, in their wake.
I’m struck by a line written on April 26, 1945, “Among the many defeats at the end of this war is the defeat of the male sex.” The writer was feeling optimistic that men and their violence and sense of ownership had finally been vanquished.
Unfortunately, the male sex is still starting wars, dropping bombs, and conducting inhumane atrocities across the globe.
What this book showed me is that history, and war, always has something to teach us … If we are ready to listen to their words and heed their advice.
Want to read it for yourself? Pick up your copy of A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. Prefer to purchase from Amazon?
Disclosure: The links on this page are affiliate links. As such, we will earn affiliate income if you should purchase as a result of these links.