In 1939, when Ian Buruma's epic opens, Berlin has been under Nazi rule for six years, and its 4.3 million people have made their accommodations to the regime, more or less. When war broke out with Poland in September, what was most striking at first was how little changed. Unless you were Jewish.
Then life, already hard, was soon to get unfathomably worse. By 1943, with the German defeat at Stalingrad, ordinary life in Berlin would acquire an increasingly desperate cast. The last three years of the war in Berlin are truly a descent into hell, with a deranged regime in desperate free fall, an increasingly relentless pounding from Allied bombers, and the mounting dread of the approaching Soviet army.
The common greeting of Berliners was now not Auf wiedersehen or Heil Hitler but Bleiben Sie übrig -'Stay alive'. And by war's end Berlin's population had fallen by almost half. Among the people trying to stay alive in the city was Ian Buruma's own father, a prisoner conscripted into forced labour in the war economy along with 400,000 other imported workers.
Buruma gives due weight to his and their experiences, which give the book a special added dimension. This is a book full of tenderness and genuine heroism, but it is by no means sentimental: again and again we see that most people do not do the hard thing most of the time. Most people go along.
It's a lesson that has not lost its timeliness.
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Stay Alive 9781805462897 Hardback
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Stay Alive: Berlin 1939- 1945 by Ian Buruma
Amid the welter of war 1939-1945 a typical Berliner's greeting was 'Bleiben Sie ulrige' / Stay Alive' The author's father, Leo, was a Dutch student of law at the outbreak of the war and was later drafted to join the workforce from occupied countries to take the place of Ger…
Amid the welter of war 1939-1945 a typical Berliner's greeting was 'Bleiben Sie ulrige' / Stay Alive' The author's father, Leo, was a Dutch student of law at the outbreak of the war and was later drafted to join the workforce from occupied countries to take the place of Germans sent to fight. Some volunteered and some, like Leo, forced into taking part. The book tells the story of life in Berlin during the war years from the point of view of native Berliners and foreign forced labour together with the lasting effects on the subsequent lives of both and their subsequent children. Remarkably prescient in the light of our present work conditions,
- Authors:
- Buruma, Ian
- Year Published:
- 2026
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Format:
- Hardback
- ISBN:
- 9781805462897
- Number of Pages:
- 400
- Publication Date:
- 05/03/2026
- Publisher:
- Atlantic Books
- Language:
- English
- Place of Publication:
- London
- SKU:
- 9781805462897