Chrisi A’s Reviews > A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary > Status Update

Now that things have settled, rape is no longer a daily threat, but something at this point the women are mostly willing to speak to each other about their experiences

A sense of normality is finally returning as people are able to get food, things like faucet water actually works again. There is a clear sense of trauma, especially in the women, that is still impacting them. And yet there really is a sense that the absolute worst is over.

There really is a sense of how not everyone is experiencing the same thing besides the unifying fear that connects all the Germans in Berlin. Some are suffering far less, and people not too far away or hours away are suffering far more.

The author really makes you forget just like she admits how short of a period she is writing over. It easily felt likes weeks if not months that she has been enduring, when in reality it’s been more like a week.

The way the author quickly adapts to her situation and finds an odd sense of normalcy in hell is fascinating. There is clearly some trauma and desire to be in a different situation that creates reminders that she, at the end of the day, is simply trying to survive.

With the Russians rolling into town, the author gives such a good sense of the waves of emotions that are being felt, especially by the woman. While she does not go into strong detail, she clearly is trying to process the trauma she has just experienced. There is a sad sense of awareness in how she eventually tries to brush it off in just a day in the reality that this would not be stopping anytime soon.

So far it’s a clear expression of the fear that people feel in Berlin in the days on Hitler’s birthday and after. There is a strange sense of normalization that the author points out to how people handle their depressingly terrifying reality.

It’s an interesting