In The City of Angels

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I drove like mad to stop at the library. I had on hold a book titled: “A Woman in Berlin” by an Anonymous writer. This has been made into a film, which I plan to see this Saturday. This is based on the diary of the author; a German woman during the siege of 1945. It details how she endured hunger and rape, yet survived nonetheless.

I only had time to read the introduction and the first chapters, before sleep lured me to put the book down.
Yet, while reading her account, I could not help but notice the similarity of collective fears she described, with the atmosphere one breathes all around.

It is not because we are at war in a faraway place that one perceives the palpable collective fear. Rather, it is because the news details the effects of the ailing global economy, the moral decay and surge in violence, and how the shadow of darkness seems to have a stronghold on society -- as it affects us personally.

Technology intricately brings people together no matter how far flung. You from the chair you are sitting on, me as I type in my pajamas, those who cannot sleep due to insomnia. Times have changed, yet human nature prevails. We huddle closer, and whisper among ourselves.

It is ironic how the discussion I had with a friend this evening escalated in decibels, as it pertained as to how women who choose prostitution over an honorable woman who resorts to housekeeping to sustain her family. I said to him then, "how do you know what drove a certain woman on that path? You can't generalize."

In the introduction of this book by C.W Ceram, it reads: “Who confronted by such a collective fate…claim the right to use a moral yardstick…No man could…faced with a loaded gun, were compelled to say to wife or daughter:’ Go along, for God’s sake!’…from an armchair it is all too easy to judge……because she had to surrender she never surrendered her self.” [10]

As I attempted to sleep, I mulled this over. If faced with a gun would I surrender? Probably; it is survival mode.
If it meant to appease ravenous hunger? Not likely, as I would adapt to any chore…yet that would obviously depend entirely on the circumstances involved.

If the gun was aimed to harm someone I loved?

I would kill to defend those I love.
This I know with certainty to the core.








Excerpt from "A Woman in Berlin" by Anonymous, 1954 Harcourt, Brace and Co., Inc.