- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd; 1st Edition edition (3 Mar 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0434010502
- ISBN-13: 978-0434010509
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 793,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
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.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
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 her 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 - typhus, influenza or simply the apparently petty inflammations of bedbug bites - 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 in the face of Russian victory the survivors could not look forward a return to peacetime but rather to pillage and rape, even in their own cellar, as the victorious Russian soldiers stampeded through the broken city and its broken women and girls. 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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Helga Schneider's powerful and moving memoir tells of her struggle to survive her terrifying childhood in wartime and post-war Berlin after her mother abandons her to pursue a career as a camp guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her father remarries but goes to fight on the frontlines, leaving Heidi to be bought up by her stepmother who hated little Heidi and did nothing to ease her fears and unhappiness. The Bonfire of Berlin is a heart wrenching account of her traumatic wartime experiences. It is hard hitting and slams home just how atrocious the conditions were for those that lived through this horrific time.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An amazing book that leaves me wanting to know more about Helga. She went through so much trauma in her childhood and you wonder how it has affected her in later life. What is she like as an adult? Is her younger brother still horrible?
A horrifying and frightening read and testament to the durability and the frailty of the human spirit. In a way the most frightening scenes were those in the children's homes that would not have looked out of place in a Dickens' novel. As a parent of a young child I just hope that fewer and fewer people have grow up like Helga did.
A good read that never lets you forget that this is her own life that she was writing about.
A horrifying and frightening read and testament to the durability and the frailty of the human spirit. In a way the most frightening scenes were those in the children's homes that would not have looked out of place in a Dickens' novel. As a parent of a young child I just hope that fewer and fewer people have grow up like Helga did.
A good read that never lets you forget that this is her own life that she was writing about.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I loved this book. It was a very easy read but was very educational at the same time. I thought that it was funny how eventhough most people know the story of the second world war, I was gripped to the end to find out what would happen. I thought that it was very touching and unbelieveable how people can come through such terror and misery. It is a story that tells a side that is rarely heard and the goodness of many of the German people.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Heartache
This is a harrowing account of deprivation during the war, how families survived is a miracle.The girl writing the account had the added pain of having a feckless mother and a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by ellen
Another gripping book by Helga Schneider
The Bonfire of Berlin follows young Helga's life following her mother's desertion of Helga and her younger brother to further her career in the SS as a guard at Auschwitz-... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Snodge
Survival Story
I think this is the first book I've read about World War II which is told from the perspective of a German Christian and this is the first time I have read anything about the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Lovely Treez
A most moving story of an unexpected victim of the war
This is a most honest and moving story of a little girl abandoned by her fanatical Nazi mother. She too was a victim of the war. A most moving and disturbing tale. Read more
Published on 30 Dec 2009 by K. O'Connor
A disappointment
As someone doing research in this area I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately I couldn't get beyond the first few chapters. Read more
Published on 4 Nov 2009 by Solomon
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