Powerful, Horrifying & Thought Provoking

Return To Berlin by Ellen Feldman is a powerful, heartbreaking and horrifying historical novel that educates while we read.

This is a dual timeline story as we begin in postwar Berlin but also look backwards to pre-war Berlin and America.

Berlin is a complicated city. It had been the seat of Hitler’s power and contained the bunker where he ended his life. Pre-war Jewish life was eroded bit by bit. People ‘disappeared’ or were able to flee to America. Families were split up.

Post war Berlin was a place not only for Berliners but also for Americans, British and Soviets as the city was divided into zones. Whilst the population of Berlin did support the Nazis way of life – either by being complicit or through their silence – the women and girls suffered from much brutality when the Soviets rode into town.

This book throws up many conflicting emotions in the reader. Like the main character, I wanted to dislike the Berliners who stood idly by whist the atrocities were committed – but the treatment of women and girls by the Soviets horrified and disgusted me. Return To Berlin will definitely mess with your emotions.