SALON

Friday, Jul 17, 2009 4:18 PM UTC

Rape in Berlin: Facing the truth

Thousands of German women were sexually assaulted near the end of WW II. Brutal payback, a war crime or both?

By

Topics: Soviet Union, Beyond the Multiplex, Russia, Violence Against Women, Germany, World War II, Movies,

Strand Releasing

Nina Hoss in “A Woman in Berlin.”

At first glance, Max Färberböck’s World War II melodrama “A Woman in Berlin” is exactly the kind of worthy but unremarkable foreign-language movie likely to come and go quickly, hitting a few big-city theaters on its way to DVD. But however and wherever you see it, “A Woman in Berlin” is a distinctive achievement, a World War II movie unlike any other and one of the few films ever to address a topic that makes almost everyone want to look away: What happens to women in wartime.

Since long before the time of Helen of Troy — who was Helen of Sparta until the Trojan prince Paris snatched her — women’s bodies have been among the principal spoils of war. Even in the modern age, when women are theoretically regarded as human beings rather than property, this old pattern has reasserted itself on a regular basis. “A Woman in Berlin” is based on the notorious 1953 memoir by a woman who called herself Anonyma. She was among the thousands of girls and women who were repeatedly raped by occupying Russian soldiers amid the smoldering ruins of Berlin during the chaotic final stages of World War II. As many of the younger and more attractive women did, Anonyma turned to a Red Army officer for protection, preferring to be a kept woman rather than the sex toy of any random infantryman.

There are numerous emotional and political complications to this story, and Färberböck’s ruthless, ravishing film doesn’t shirk any of them. As played by ice-blond German starlet Nina Hoss (whose makeup and wardrobe remain immaculate through all the abuse), Anonyma is not some dewy-eyed innocent but rather a hardcore Nazi true believer, who assumes the stories about Jewish death camps and Ukrainian village massacres are communist propaganda. As the film makes clear, the Red Army arrives in Berlin in a collective foul mood. Millions of their comrades have died fighting the Germans, who had committed numerous atrocities during their occupation of the Ukraine and western Russia. None of that justifies raping civilian women, but it clearly created a climate where indiscriminate anti-German violence was seen as pure payback.

While “A Woman in Berlin” is definitely a wrenching experience, and one that will push almost any viewer’s discomfort buttons, it does not in the end paint a hopeless picture. Anonyma may have supported an unforgivable regime, but it’s impossible not to admire her indomitable pride, and she seems to rediscover some basic humanity through her terrible ordeal. The film is full of tense party scenes, poised between camaraderie and violence, as Russian soldiers and German civilians drink together in commandeered apartments, forging the beginnings of a civil society on the edge of total anarchy.

Anonyma’s relationship with Andrei (Evgeny Sidikhin), a taciturn Red Army officer with a wife and child back home somewhere, begins as pure business and evolves into something much more complicated. She doesn’t much like him at first, and he appears to reciprocate. But there’s clearly a sexual spark between them, and he’s a powerful man who can protect her from further abuse. You might say that Färberböck has buried a borderline S/M “frenemy” romance about a smashing blonde and a mysterious stranger inside this dark story about an exceedingly dark historical episode. Andrei and Anonyma are doomed by their circumstances — they aren’t equals and never will be — and they could never have met under normal conditions. But human desire often follows strange pathways, and the connection that forms between them is stormy and intense.

Anonyma’s memoir was virtually banned in Germany when it was first published; nobody wanted to add to the shame of the Nazi past by discussing the fact that Berlin’s female population had been forced into sex slavery en masse. The book’s republication caused a nationwide sensation in 2003, and was followed by Färberböck’s film (a big-budget production by European standards). It’s another indication that today’s Germany is a vastly different place, open to confronting virtually every aspect of its horrific 20th-century past. For those of us elsewhere in the world, this story should serve as a cautionary example: Berlin in 1945 was a bad situation, but hardly a unique one. If we believe such things don’t still happen — and aren’t happening today — when men with guns are put in charge of unarmed women, we’re kidding ourselves.

“A Woman in Berlin” is now playing at the Angelika Film Center in New York, with national release to follow.

Andrew O

More Andrew O'Hehir.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 143 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3011 points3012 points | 1608 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
902 points903 points | 449 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
139 points140 points | 42 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
25 points26 points | 13 comments
vote
Recent scandals are Whitewater redux, not Watergate
22 points23 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations