Resumo de Berlin Diaries - RUTH ANDREAS-FRIEDRICH

Berlin
DiariesDuring World War II, Andreas-Friedrich was part of an
informal Berlin
resistance group, made up of journalists, doctors, and other professionals.
Counterfeiting papers, working the black market, and sharing accommodation,
they helped to hide, feed, and clothe Jews and other illegals,
while surviving bombing raids and avoiding the Gestapo. They also tried to
obtain clemency for prisoners through sympathetic officials. And they followed
the course of the war at a distance, in secret on British radio, filtered
through Nazi propaganda, and through word of mouth.

Andreas-Friedrich''s diaries in Berlin Underground offer a vivid
portrait of this life, from 1938 through to the end of the war. They convey the
claustrophobia of life under a totalitarian regime, but also the ongoing
normalcy of everyday life and the limitations on resistance. (The most
aggressive act of her group was a theft from a police station during an air raid.)

Haven''t people learned from eleven years experience
of the Gestapo to hold their tongues? True, silence won''t bring any overthrow.
That''s the tragic part of our plight. If we talk, plan, and recruit allies, we
are hanged; among ten people there is always one who is treacherous or
loose-mouthed. Yet if we are silent, and only vent our indignation within our
own four walls, then we still keep the Nazis. The dilemma remains the
same.

The result is engrossing reading, mixing engaging personal
stories and insightful general observations.

In many ways more interesting than the earlier volume, Battleground
Berlin picks up the story with the fall of Berlin to the Russians. This brought new
dangers: mass rape, lawless appropriation of goods by both Russians and
Germans, unpredictable decrees, and the struggle to survive freezing winters
without power. When order returned there were still the problems of dealing
with multiple currencies, black markets, speculation, and slender rations ? and
the early tensions and conflicts of the Cold War, in which Berlin was right on
the front line.

The areas around the Allied officers'' mess halls
abound with trophy hunters. Catch, they think, and take home the cans that have
been thrown away, to scrape them out, lick them clean or wash the remains with
water into their soup. Catch! If you are hungry enough it doesn''t disgust you. In the years since the war, thousands
who once knew better days have ceased feeling disgusted.

The revival of politics saw a successful fight to save the
Berlin Social Democratic Party from forced merger with the Communist Party, but
also the splintering of Andreas-Friedrich''s circle of friends, previously
united by opposition to Nazism. Unable to work as a newspaper editor when only
essentials were being brought in by the Berlin Airlift, Andreas-Friedrich left Berlin in December 1948.

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