The Bonfire Of Berlin

Helga Schneider, Shaun Whiteside

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Paperback

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English

Corgi
03 April 2006

Biography; Autobiography: general; European history; Second World War

The powerful and moving memoir of Helga Schneider's abandonment by her parents and her terrifying childhood in wartime and post-war Berlin, by the author of Let Me Go.

Abandoned by her mother, who left to pursue a career as a camp guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, loathed by her step-mother, 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. The grinding misery of hunger, combined with the terror of air-raids, the absence of fresh water and the constant threat of death and disease served not to unite the tenants and neighbours of her apartment block but rather to intensify the minor irritations of communal life into flashpoints of rage and violence. And with Russian victory the survivors could not look forward a return to peacetime but rather to pillage and rape. It was only gradually that Schneider's life returned to some kind of normality, as her beloved father returned from the front, carrying his own scars of the war. This shocking book evokes the reality of life in a wartime city in all its brutality and deprivation, while retaining a kernel of hope that while life remains not all is lost.

By: Helga Schneider
Translated by: Shaun Whiteside
Imprint: Corgi
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 160g
ISBN: 9780099443735
ISBN 10: 0099443732
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 03 April 2006
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Helga Schneider was born in German Poland but spent her childhood in Berlin where she was raised by her stepmother after being abandoned by her mother. She has lived in Bologna since 1963, and is the author of Let Me Go.

Reviews for The Bonfire Of Berlin

Praise for Let Me Go 'A powerful, painful book' Guardian 'Frightening and fascinating' Mail on Sunday 'Grips the reader completely...so powerful' Glasgow Herlad 'Desperately sad and powerful...Unforgettable' Jewish Telegraph