Novel set in USA, VIETNAM and JAPAN
The story of Berlin in the 20th century
17th January 2025
Berliners by John Simmons, the story of Berlin in the 20th century. Illustrated by Andrzej Krause.
Berliners is a short book – only 30 pages – formatted as a poem. John has written the chapters in a variety of poetic styles, The whole is beautifully illustrated by Andrzej Krause. It covers the history of Berlin (and thus of Germany and a wider Europe) in the 20th century. It starts with the 1919 to 1933 Weimar Republic and the mass student burning of books, and moves on to the camp horrors of WW2, and then the Cold War times of a divided city, followed by a unified Germany. The time line moves back and forth a little and focuses on individual events as they impact local lives – for good and for bad. Many of the scenes recorded are poignant and disturbing. As this one concerning a girl discovering the Berlin Wall the morning after it was built:
A young girl dawning
takes history’s bony hand
that morning, and goes
for a walk as lovers do,
finding only no way through
She came to the wall
and everyone halted
while wide eyed neighbours
gazed at narrowed vistas, scratched
heads in sudden disbelief.
Berliners is a very good read for anyone wanting to gain an understanding of what happened in Berlin in the last century. It was a quite tumultuous time with so much impacting.
Berlin is one of my favourite cities in the whole world, and this book does it justice.
Tony for the TripFiction team
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