A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary

For eight weeks, from 20 April to 22 June 1945, as Berlin fell to the Red Army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The writer describes the widesspread rapes rapes by Soviet soldiers including her own, and the women's pragmatic approach to survival, often taking Soviet officers for protection. She depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. For a long time the name of the author was not known. In 2003 it was revealed that the book was written by journalist Marta Hillers (1922-2001), born in Krefeld. After attending local schools, she studied in Paris at the Sorbonne. She later travelled extensively throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union. She spoke French and some Russian in addition to her native German. Hillers worked as a journalist in Berlin during the Nazi regime writing for magazines and newspapers.