Fic­tion

City of Women

David R. Gillham
  • Review
By – August 6, 2012

Berlin is bereft of men in 1943; it has become a city of women.” Sigrid Schroder lives with her moth­er-in-law while her hus­band is away, fight­ing the war. She works in the patent office, where the women are told they are fight­ing the war, too. Life is grim, with mis­er­able rationed food, and night­ly bomb­ings by the Brits forc­ing the city’s res­i­dents into cramped shel­ters. Sigrid seeks pri­va­cy and relief by fan­ta­siz­ing about or meet­ing up with her secret Jew­ish lover at the movie the­ater when­ev­er she can steal away. Her life becomes even more com­pli­cat­ed when she befriends Ericha, who works for an over­whelmed neigh­bor who was award­ed the Mother’s Cross of Hon­or for being rich in chil­dren.” Ericha lures a curi­ous Sigrid into com­plic­i­ty in her under­ground world hid­ing Jews. Sigrid is trans­formed from some­one mind­ing her own busi­ness to hav­ing her eyes opened to the truth and being moved to action. The sto­ry is intel­li­gent­ly writ­ten with detailed descrip­tions of Berlin and its peo­ple dur­ing this peri­od. Though it’s hard to believe that Sigrid could become so instant­ly com­pe­tent in espi­onage, her rela­tion­ships and con­ver­sa­tions ring true. She is an unsung hero, rep­re­sent­ing oth­er name­less peo­ple who risked their lives to do some­thing good in the face of evil.

Miri­am Brad­man Abra­hams, mom, grand­mom, avid read­er, some­time writer, born in Havana, raised in Brook­lyn, resid­ing in Long Beach on Long Island. Long­time for­mer One Region One Book chair and JBC liai­son for Nas­sau Hadas­sah, cur­rent­ly pre­sent­ing Inci­dent at San Miguel with author AJ Sidran­sky who wrote the his­tor­i­cal fic­tion based on her Cuban Jew­ish refugee family’s expe­ri­ences dur­ing the rev­o­lu­tion. Flu­ent in Span­ish and Hebrew, cer­ti­fied hatha yoga instructor.

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