A Woman in Berlin

SUNDAY, 10 JUNE 1945

They’ve announced on the radio that the Russians are going to set up their military administration in Berlin after all, so that Russia will now stretch all the way to Bavaria, Hanover and Holstein; the English are supposed to get the Rhine and Ruhr, and Bavaria goes to the Americans. It’s a topsy-turvy world with our country all sliced up. We’ve had peace for a month now

A reflective morning, with music and sunshine, which I spent reading Rilke, Goethe, Hauptmann. The fact that they, too, are also German is some consolation, that they were of our kind.

At 1:30 p.m. I set off on a humid march through a Berlin that’s still silent and empty. In Charlottenburg we sat down again and planned. A new man has joined our group, a professional printer. He thinks obtaining paper shouldn’t be our first order of business, since anyone who has paper is going to hold onto it, and even hide it, for fear of confiscation. And if someone were willing to part with some, we have no way to pick it up or place to store it until we can start printing. At the moment our entire fleet consists of two bicycles – and that’s more than most firms. The printer thinks our primary task should be to acquire a licence from the authorities – an official allocation of printing paper. The engineer has already made the rounds of every conceivable German or Russian office and collected a lot of empty promises – he gave a rather depressing account. Only the Hungarian is bursting with optimism. He’s a sly dog, no doubt about it. I happened to mention a crate of framed photos that was still in the basement of my former firm, portraits of men who’d received the Knight’s Cross, that were intended to be handed out as prizes at some ceremony. His eyes grew bright and he immediately asked, ‘Pictures? With glass?’

‘Yes, all framed with glass.’

‘We’ll go and get the glass,’ he decreed. He’s found some potential office space, but like most spaces in Berlin, it has no windowpanes. As far as I’m concerned he can go ahead and break in. I’ll gladly act as a lookout. But my guess is that the crate has long since gone.

On my way home I dropped in on Gisela. Hertha was lying sick on the sofa again, but this time her face was no longer a glowing red – it was snow white. She’d had a miscarriage, Gisela told me. I didn’t ask any questions, just gave each of the girls one of the chocolates the Hungarian had given me on my way out, ‘as a thank-you for the good tip about the glass’. Filled mocha-beans, very tasty. It was nice to see the girls’ tense, bitter faces relax up when they tasted the sweet filling.

I told Gisela about our publishing plans, thinking that she could join us as soon as one of them becomes concrete. Gisela was sceptical. She can’t imagine that we’ll be able to print the kind of thing we want to, not here in Germany right now She thinks that they won’t allow anything that doesn’t follow the Moscow line, which isn’t her own. She’s too embarrassed to mention the word ‘God’ in front of me, but that was the gist of what she was saying. I’m convinced that she prays and that this gives her strength. She doesn’t have any more to eat than I do. She has deep circles under her eyes, but hers are lit up, whereas mine are simply bright. We can’t help each other now But the simple fact that I’m surrounded by other hungry people keeps me going.