Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall

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For forty years, an East German family was separated by the division between East and West Berlin and the efforts of the Russian and pro-Russian German government to end emigration.

The author’s mother, Hanna, is a strong-willed girl who sees the oppression around her and the change to the family’s once happy existence. Her future is limited since she has not joined the party and therefore cannot find work. Her father works as headmaster in a school that is suddenly ordered to propagate Communist party loyalty rather than educate the students. The father is caught between his high ethics and the demands of the party. Any divergence from blind allegiance to the party casts suspicion and harsh penalties on the citizens. In fact, because of the father’s outspoken lapse, he is institutionalized in a mental hospital. His daughter, meanwhile, has a life in the West but cannot freely communicate with her family; any attempt to do so would place them under severe scrutiny. Even if you well know the story of the East German sequester, you will be drawn to this family story of living through the worst of times.


Reviewed By:

Author Nina Willner
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 373 pages
Publisher William Morrow
Publish Date 2016-10-04
ISBN 9780062410313
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue October 2016
Category Biographies & Memoirs
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