The Berlin Letters

The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay, 356 pages

In 1961, when she was just a baby, Luisa's mother tossed her over the newly erected barbed wire barrier in Berlin, where Luisa's grandfather caught her. Luisa's mom hoped she'd be able to soon follow her daughter into West Berlin, but unfortunately that never happened, and Luisa grew up believing that her parents died in a car accident that left her in her grandparents' care. 

In 1989, Luisa is now a naturalized U.S. citizen and she's working for the CIA as a codebreaker, using some of the skills that her grandfather taught her as a child. But when a packet of letters with a familiar mark on them appears in her office, Luisa must confront the idea that everything she thought she knew about her family is wrong.

Hopping back and forth between Luisa's life in 1989 and her father's life in the 1960s and 70s, The Berlin Letters explores the Cold War through the lens of those who were trapped in East Berlin and cut off from their families, while simultaneously exploring the secretive ways that information was leaked out from behind the Iron Curtain. This was a fast-paced and interesting tale, and it makes me want to learn more about ciphers and the 1980s East Berlin punk scene and everything in between. An excellent and approachable historical fiction novel.

My German Brother

My German Brother: a Novel / Chico Buarque, trans. Alison Entrekin, 199 p.

Ciccio comes of age in Sao Paolo in the 1960s, stealing cars with his friend Ariosto and cheerfully stalking his older brother Mimmo's parade of girlfriends.  One day, while leafing through one of his father's books - he has thousands, and they are shelved 2, 3 and 4-deep throughout the house - he comes across a letter pointing to the existence of a half-brother, born in Germany in the early thirties.

I don't know how to say what I mean, exactly, but this novel has that lovely quality of a lot of South American novels I've read: dreamy and smooth, as if the events slide through time kept on a new, strange clock.  It's also very funny, earthy, and poignant.  Based on events from the author's life, and including copies of real letters involved in the search for Chico Buarque's own German brother. 

Exit Berlin: How One Woman Saved Her Family from Nazi Germany / Charlotte Bonelli 293 pp.

Bonelli is an archivist who researched the letters of Luzie Hecht, a longtime employee of the American Jewish Committee, and in so doing uncovered an important wartime story.    Luzie was a 27-year-old Berliner, from a comfortable but not wealthy Jewish family.  In 1938, having for months seen her employment prospects dim in Germany, she left Berlin with the assistance of a wealthy American cousin, Arnold Hatch.  (Hecht, anglicized)  Over the next several years, she maintained copious correspondence with a host of relatives and friends in Germany, her file being distinctive because she kept copies of her own letters as well as those she received.  She made strenuous efforts to assist and advise this wide circle who was left behind, with no financial means of her own.

I sort of fell in love with Luzie while reading her letters. Although she succeeded in directing her immediate family to New York via an 18-month stay in Shanghai, most of her remaining correspondents would perish.  This was no fault of Luzie's, of course.  She was a penniless immigrant in New York who had only her distant relative in Albany to rely on.  It was her role as cheerleader to all those left behind, so evident in her letters, that was quite moving.  I can only imagine how important her many letters were to those who received them. Bonelli's arrangement and explication was far less interesting than the letters themselves; still I am grateful for her work in bringing them to light.

Masaryk Station by David Downing

Masaryk Station by David Downing, 330 pages.

The final book in Downing's excellent John Russell series takes place after the war and as the Cold War is starting. All of the decisions that Russell made during the war, helping the British, the Americans and, when he had to, the Russians come back to him as he and Effie try to survive in 1948 Berlin. All sides think that Russell is their man, working as a double-agent. Russell must find a way out of the web he has found himself in as the city must deal with the looming blockade.
Excellent ending to a very well done series. Highly recommended for fans of well-written thrillers and fans of WWII and espionage ficiton.

Check our Catalog.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin / Erik Larson 448 p.

Others have blogged about this before me and I doubt I have anything new to add. Karen's post summarizes the details perfectly: this is the story of William Dodd, ambassador to Germany in the early thirties.  He was an academic and a decent man who saw that Hitler's Germany was heading in a disastrous direction and tried to act morally in the face of that.  But he did what academics do - he wrote correspondence and briefs, he gave speeches which were condemnatory but so graceful and scholarly that they landed like feathers rather than the hammer blows that were needed.  In the end he was recalled because even his mild protests were too annoying to the Germans and the American diplomats who were of the appeasement school. 

And then there was his daughter, who features largely in the book because of her many 'friendships' with various powerful German men of the day.  So I guess I'm a prude, but I found myself distracted throughout the book by her easy virtue.  And I wondered, frankly, what in the world she was using for birth control in those Dark Ages of women's reproductive health, because she certainly would have needed something.  Sheesh.  But that's a digression.  Dodd and his daughter are two people for whom it's hard to feel much enthusiasm; it's to Larson's credit that he makes their story such a fascinating read.

In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Germany by Erik Larson  448 pp.

Evidently this is my month for WWII books, having already blogged about Prague Winter. This book is about the years leading up to the war. William E. Dodd was appointed the first U.S. Ambassador to Hitler's Germany in 1933 and served until 1937. Dodd was not the first, second, or even third choice to hold that post. He was a quiet, frugal man who essentially found himself way over his head in dealing with the Nazis and the powers that be in the U.S. State Department. He believed his job would be an easy one that would give him plenty of time to work on a book he was writing about the "Old South." Dodd's daughter, Martha, dove into the Berlin social scene attending parties and events with a number of different suitors including Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo. Some even wanted her to become Hitler's girlfriend. As Dodd became more horrified at the treatment of the Jews, those who opposed the Nazis, and even some Americans, he found it increasingly difficult to convince his superiors in Washington that the problem was a serious one. Soon even Martha realized that the Nazis were frighteningly evil and found a sympathetic Russian Communist as her next paramour. There were times while reading I wished I could go back in time to give both Dodd and his daughter a good shake (or a Gibbs head slap) to wake them out of their naivete.

As with his other books, Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck, Larson has taken a serious non-fiction topic and made it as readable as a novel.

The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow 400 pages

Just when I think that I might have read all that could be written in juv literature about the Holocaust, there comes a new title from a completely different point of view. Fourteen year old Karl Stern doesn't "look" Jewish like his younger sister and so he has been able to "pass" as a non-Jew. Until the horrible day at his school, Nazi-loving bullies pull down his pants revealing the undeniable truth, beat him up and abuse him in the bathroom. His parents seem somewhat oblivious. His father is totally focused about the opening at his art gallery. His mother is withdrawn. The famous Max Schmeling, champion boxer stops by the opening and offers to barter his boxing lessons for Karl in exchange for a favorite painting. Karl had never had an interest in boxing, and Max gives him a training list that he must accomplish before he is even ready for lessons. Max grabs onto this opportunity like it is the life raft that might save him and hopes that his stronger physique might attract his attractive neighbor. Karl is also interested in cartooning, but his cartoons are much darker than Wimpy kid like doodles. His younger sister, Hildy worships him, but she also sees the changes in the world of their Berlin as violence against Jews escalates. The author draws characters never seen before in children's lit -- not just the Nazi hero, Max, but their father's cross-dressing patron, the Countess. Gritty, but believable.