Stay Alive

Berlin, 1939-1945

De: Ian Buruma

Narrado por: Ian Buruma

“Crisply told and uncomfortably relevant.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Exquisite.” —Wall Street Journal

“[A] far-reaching and masterly work.” —Library Journal (starred review)

An astonishing account of life under a murderous regime amid a great city’s descent into utter annihilation

In 1939, when Ian Buruma’s epic opens, Berlin has been under Nazi rule for six years, and its 4.3 million people have made their accommodations to the regime, more or less. When war broke out with Poland in September, what was most striking at first was how little changed. Unless you were Jewish. Then life, already hard, was soon to get unfathomably worse.

Buruma gives tender attention to the Jewish experience in Berlin during the war, weaving its thread into the broader fabric of this marvelously rich and vivid mosaic of urban life. The distillation of a broad-gauged reckoning with a vast trove of primary sources, including a surprising number of interviews with living survivors, the book is a study in extremes—depravity and resilience, moral blindness and moral courage, pious bigotry and unchecked hedonism.

By 1943, with the German defeat at Stalingrad, ordinary life in Berlin would acquire an increasingly desperate cast. The last three years of the war in Berlin are truly a descent into hell, with a deranged regime in desperate free fall, an increasingly relentless pounding from Allied bombers, and the mounting dread of the approaching Soviet army. The common greeting of Berliners was now not “Auf wiedersehen” or “Heil Hitler” but “Bleiben Sie übrig”—“Stay alive.” And by war’s end Berlin’s population had fallen by almost half.

Among the people trying to stay alive in the city was Ian Buruma’s own father, a Dutch student conscripted into forced labor in the war economy along with 400,000 other imported workers. Buruma gives due weight to his and their experiences, which give the book a special added dimension. This is a book full of tenderness and genuine heroism, but it is by no means sentimental: again and again we see that most people do not do the hard thing most of the time. Most people go along. It’s a lesson that has not lost its timeliness.

Life in Berlin During WWII

This is a well written and pretty interesting account of life in Berlin during all phases of World War II. As Hitler and Goebbels try to control the population, some support them enthusiastically, a small number opposes them, and most, as the title suggests, just try to get by. Getting by was all but impossible for Jewish residents although a few did, at least for a while.

For the first part of the war, life in Berlin was not that bad for the privileged. Then it started getting bad for almost everyone--Everyone but the highest level Nazis.

This is a sobering account that tells the stories of many individuals, including the aftermath for those who survived. It's a good book. It plods in a few places. The narration is OK, but not more.

Important book

Excellent book and a reminder to never forget. Well researched and well written. Highly recommend.

Excellent presentation

Topic was interesting and the lives of Berliners during the war. I especially found the lives of those of mixed heritage and their struggle to survive intriguing.

Daily history of Berlin during WWII

So interesting and detailed; well written and presented. The personal stories are vey moving. One gets a sense of having a front row seat to the travails of its citizens.

Remaining Decent in Wartime

Burma focuses on compromises, bravery, and opportunism in wartime Berlin. The value of this book rests in Burma's focus on ordinary citizens of Berlin living through an ideological nightmare period.