A Woman in Berlin

On Wednesday 25 April, Marta is too tired to respond to an early morning air raid siren. She lays on her neighbor’s couch, smelling the fires from outside. By dawn, the fighting is close, and the walls shake. While Marta fetches water, an unexpected air raid drives her into an unknown basement shelter. In the pitch black, she guards her buckets of water while a woman moans in fear. Marta notices that not many people pray anymore; she herself resists the temptation to pray. That evening, while at home, the ferocity of the bombing forces her back into the shelter. News of a nearby death reaches the inhabitants of her building, and they struggle to feel compassion.

The following morning, on Thursday 26 April, Marta’s building takes a direct hit, and the attic is destroyed. She grabs what she can as the clouds of dust and plaster burn her throat. The previous evening, she had queued up outside a shop for food under a Russian barrage. The following morning, Marta and her fellow shelter-dwellers discuss the local propaganda and try to have breakfast together. As they eat, a bomb falls on the building. Everyone bands together to stop the broken radiators from leaking water throughout the building, and Marta likens their efforts to soldiers in battle. Marta must stay with the widow on the first floor now that her apartment is in ruins. That afternoon, word reaches her that the local police barracks are giving away all their food supplies. People rush to the barracks, and during a struggle in the dimly lit corridors of the building, Marta takes what she can. The barracks has better supplies than what is available to civilians. Marta drags her heavy crate of supplies home, where she and the other residents “divvy up the loot” (37). After a short nap, another raid leads to looting everywhere. A truck filled with German troops passes by, and Marta feels that the world is crumbling around her. The people in the shelter eat well as the Russians move ever closer.

Friday 27 April is dubbed the “day of catastrophe, wild turmoil” (40). During a quiet morning, Marta tries to remember the little Russian she knows. She creeps out of her building and finds the street outside full of soldiers. The Russians set up a field kitchen opposite Marta’s building; eventually, a soldier discovers the basement shelter and is shocked when Marts asks him a question in basic Russian. He asks for alcohol and leaves when he finds out none is available. Outside, the Russians ride stolen motorcycles up and down the street and flirt crudely with the German women. One man follows Marta back to the basement and drunkenly stares at every woman he encounters. He rants and raves until Marta pretends to flirt with him in order to lead him away from the shelter. When they are outside, she runs for help and the man slinks away. Other Russians steal watches, and by 6pm, many Russians are drunk. The soldiers become violent, grabbing the women and demanding sex. Marta’s neighbors call on her to help resolve the situation, relying on her ability to speak the language.

Stalin’s decree that the Red Army troops should not rape German women is ineffective because the Russian soldiers recall the actions of the German army during the invasion of Russia, and now they have an opportunity to exact revenge. At one point, in a drunken stupor, several soldiers grab Marta and drag her to a quiet place and rape her. When Marta returns to the basement, she shouts at the other residents for locking her out. When they ask a senior Russian offer for help, the man just laughs. Marta and the widow barricade themselves in the widow’s apartment, but four men burst through their defenses. As the soldiers ransack the apartment, Marta tries to sneak away, but one of the soldiers grabs her and drags her into a bedroom. At dawn, the man leaves and promises that he will return. Marta finds the widow, who apologizes to Marta for fleeing the scene; Marta responds by saying, “what’s the matter, I’m alive, aren’t I?” (47). The widow tells Marta her own story of being raped by a Russian teenager. Then the residents gather in the bookseller’s apartment, the one with the most reliable locks. Petka, the man who forced Marta to spend the night with him, comes back, and when he leaves again, he promises to return soon. Marta wonders whether she is going insane.

Marta, away from her diary for three days, describes what happened on 28 April. The cold wind blows through the widow’s apartment while Marta thinks about rape, saying the word aloud for the first time. Drunken Russian soldiers smash into houses regularly in order to rape women; Marta no longer has underclothes which have not been torn open. Men stinking of tobacco and alcohol assault her, and one man leaves behind a crumpled pack of cigarettes as payment. Vomiting, Marta decides that she needs “to find a single wolf to keep away the pack” (51). She searches for a high-ranking officer whom she can seduce and petition for protection. She finds a Ukrainian lieutenant named Anatol and arranges to meet him later. Before Anatol arrives, Petka returns with friends and vodka. They sit and drink while Marta tries to delay Petka until Anatol arrives. Finally, Anatol appears, updating the other men on the collapse of the German army. Russians are now camped throughout the city, and the Germans will inevitably lose their city. Petka and his friends leave after Marta observes that the enlisted men converse with the officers as though they are equals, as “the strict Prussian order of ranks we’re so used to doesn’t apply” (54). Most of the soldiers, whatever their rank, seem to represent the working class, and Marta wonders whether she intimidates them. Marta drinks a large amount of vodka, so she remembers little of her night with Anatol.

On the morning of Sunday 29 April, the widow asks Marta is she worries about Anatol impregnating her. If Marta does become pregnant, the widow knows who they can go to for help. Marta explains that the soldiers do not care if a woman is married or single and that once they decide they want sex, they take it. Marta thinks of her boyfriend Gerd whom she would have married if were it not for the war. Marta meets a Russian named Andrei, a schoolteacher, a soldier, and an orthodox Marxist. For once, she is able to have a conversation with a man who views her as an intellectual equal instead of a sex object. Marta feels repulsed by her own skin and remembers her childhood, a time of innocence.

Later, Anatol lugs a record player into the widow’s apartment, which has become a makeshift meeting place for certain soldiers. Disregarding the classical music records, the men play an advertising jingle over and over. Eventually, Anatol dismisses everyone and takes Marta into the bedroom. Afterward, Anatol sleeps while the German residents eat dinner. That evening, Andrei returns. He and Marta talk, and he communicates to Marta his fervent belief in Marxism. Marta wonders if speaking Russian is an actual benefit; one on hand, her skill allows her to determine which Russians are truly evil, but, on the other hand, she can no longer think of them as an alien, malicious force. Russian soldiers ransack the basement shelter, taking what they please, and as the Germans mourn what is left of their meagre possessions, a German shell falls on the house next door. Marta remembers little from the evening, other than she drank and facilitated an intellectual discussion between Andrei and two other Russians. Anatol arrives, but he has little time for the discussion; Marta realizes that her proximity to him has made her taboo to the others.

The next morning, Monday 30 April, Marta wakes up alone and cleans the apartment. When Russian soldiers burst in and attempt to assault her, one of Anatol’s men stops them. The building residents meet in the bookseller’s apartment and discuss recent events; they also talk about the rumors that suggest that Hitler, Goebbels, and Mussolini are dead and that American and Russian forces are almost in total control of Berlin. Afterwards, one of Anatol’s men, a teenage sergeant named Vanya, helps Marta and the widow retrieve the widow’s stolen possessions. They recover what they can before eating lunch. Marta’s meals have improved since the arrival of the Russians; she no longer has to forage for nettles. That evening, a man with a scarred face arrives and claims to be Anatol’s orderly, so Marta lets him in and they talk for some time. Petka interrupts them, and he drunkenly throws a sewing machine at Marta, who calls out for the orderly to fetch Anatol. She resists Petka’s advances, and she eventually leads him to a stairwell where he falls. Anatol arrives after midnight, bringing with him a large meal. When Anatol receives a summons, he leaves Marta alone with a blond lieutenant with evil eyes. The man pesters her for sex and laughs about the fact that Anatol will not be returning that night. He finally gives up pestering Marta, but later in the night, he spends several hours nuzzling at her like a dog. When dawn comes, he leaves.