Narrating wartime rapes and trauma in a woman in Berlin

Abstract

In her article “Narrating Wartime Rapes and Trauma in A Woman in Berlin’ Agatha Schwartz examines the reception of the controversial wartime diary published anonymously first in 1954 in English translation. The book is a narrative representation of the mass rapes committed by Red Army soldiers during the siege of Berlin in 1945. Schwartz argues that A Woman in Berlin’s portrayal of the rapes and the rapists, although not unbiased, leaves room for the initiation of the healing of trauma and forgiveness. Schwartz reflects on how life writing, particularly by women about a difficult chapter of German history can contribute to memorialization of collective trauma outside the frame of national victimhood and defeated masculinity.