The Bonfire of Berlin

Abandoned by her mother, who-left to pursue a career as a camp guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, loathed by her stepmother, cooped up in a cellar, starved, parched, lonely amidst the fetid crush of her neighbours, Helga Schneider endured the horrors of wartime Berlin. The Bonfire of Berlin is a searing account of her survival. Even alter the Russian victory the survivors could not look forward to safety but rather to pillage and rape as the victorious troops stampeded through the broken city. It was only after Schneider's father returned from the war that her life began to return to some kid of normality. This shocking book evokes the reality of life in a wartime city in all its brutality and deprivation, yet also demonstrates humankind's capacity for hope in the darkest of circumstances.