cover image Letters from Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship

Letters from Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship

Margarete Dos and Kerstin Lieff. Lyons, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7627-7798-3

Dos’s early childhood in Berlin wasn’t easy—she was abused by her violent stepfather after her own father’s death—and her adolescence and young adulthood coincided with the brutal rise of the Nazi regime and postwar Soviet occupation. A former medical student, she served during the war as a Red Cross nurse amid allied bombings that left homes and lives in rubble. Transcribed and translated from Lieff’s interviews with her mother, Dos’s story mixes the ordinary life of high school athletics with extraordinary tragedy faced by Dos and her “Mutti.” In the war’s aftermath, Dos and her mother attempted to escape from ravaged Berlin. But the train they thought was bound for Sweden took them instead to the Soviet gulag. A treasure trove of photographs depicts Dos’s innocent prewar family life while giving insight into the overwhelmed German citizenry during the rush of Hitler’s rise. This history of an average but cheerful and optimistic teenager and her resourceful mother spells out the horrors of war but balances them with hope. Illus., maps. (Oct.)