A Woman in Berlin

‘It’s better not to speak of such things,’ she said curtly, showing me out.

A quiet evening, all to myself. Gusts of wind are sweeping through the empty window frames, swirling dust into the room. Where can I possibly go if the real tenant shows up one day? What’s certain is that, if I hadn’t been here, the apartment would long since have been cleared out by the roofers and various other fellow citizens. When it comes to heating, other people’s furniture burns better than your own.

FRIDAY, 8 JUNE 1945

The walking machine is back at it. An amazing event today: a section of the S-Balm has resumed operations on a trial basis. I saw the red and yellow cars up on the track, climbed the stairs, paid two old groschen for a ticket and got on board. The passengers were sitting on the benches, with an air of ceremony – two of them immediately moved closer together so I could squeeze in. Then we went hurtling through the sunny wasteland of the city, while all the endless, tedious minutes I had spent marching flew by the window. I was sorry I had to get out as soon as I did. The ride was so nice, a real gift.

I put in a lot of work. Ilse and I sketched out the first number of our planned women’s magazine. We still haven’t decided on a name for it, so we put our heads together on that. Each periodical definitely has to contain the word ‘new’.

The day was strangely dreamlike; people and things appeared as if behind a veil. I walked back home on sore feet, listless from hunger. All we had to eat at Ilse’s was more pea soup – two ladlefuls apiece, since we’re trying to make the supplies last. It seemed to me that every person I passed had hollow, hungry eyes. Tomorrow I’m planning to go and pick some more nettles. I kept my eyes peeled for every spot of green along the way.

Everywhere you turn you can sense the fear. People are worried about their bread, their work, their pay, about the coming day. Bitter, bitter defeat.

SATURDAY, 9 JUNE 1945

Day off for me. We agreed that for as long as I don’t have anything to eat, I’d make the 12-mile trek only every other day.

In the store where I’m registered they gave me groats and sugar in exchange for coupons – enough for two or three meals. Then with my elegantly begloved hands I picked an entire mountain of nettle shoots, orache and dandelions.

In the afternoon I went to the hairdresser’s for the first time in ages, and asked for a shampoo and set. They washed about a pound of dirt out of my hair. The hairdresser had popped up from somewhere to take over the shop of a colleague who was pressed into the Volkssturm at the last minute and is missing in action. Supposedly the man’s family was evacuated to Thuringia. The place had been pretty well ransacked, but one mirror is still intact and one dryer is still halfway serviceable, if rather dented. The man’s speech was very pre-war: ‘Yes, ma’am. Why of course, ma’am, I’d be happy to, ma’am.’ I find all the overly solicitous and polite phrases somewhat alien now ‘Yes, ma’am’ is for internal use only, a currency of no value except among ourselves. To the rest of the world we’re nothing but rubble-women and trash.

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.