Rating: 5 out of 5

I picked this up because it was mentioned as a source for The Silence In Between, a book I read earlier this year. This felt like an important diary to read. As a Brit, my knowledge of the end of the Second World War is really based on the history we were taught in school, which is mostly the victor’s perspective.

This was a tough read in places, but the author wrote it so well that it never felt like the completely harrowing account it could have easily been.

I started by reading the introduction (as I normally would!), and I quickly realised it was summarising the experiences in the rest of the book. So, today, after I finished the diary itself, I went back to the introduction and found it to be an excellent summary. If you decide to read this, I’d suggest returning to the introduction at the end, too.

The diary covers just two months, starting on April 20th and ending on June 22nd, 1945, but it holds a vast amount of change. It starts with time spent huddled in the basement with the other residents of her apartment building, moves through the arrival of the Red Army, and then covers a period where women were the majority in the city and forced into labour. Finally, the army leaves, and the men start to return.

Her experiences are, obviously, told through a female lens. It covers dark subjects like rape, enforced labour, hunger, and humiliation, but it also makes space for friendships and community.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account