UNDERGROUND IN BERLIN A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany

This book is one woman's personal story of the Holocaust. There's no attempt to examine broader social or historical issues, just stories of life as a Jewish young woman in Berlin. Ellen Archer is solid as narrator, making this first-person work sound like she's talking rather than reading, which is important, as the book is a transcription of lengthy oral interviews. The author recounts her experiences as a forced laborer in a war-related factory and her life as an "underground" (undetected) Jew amid the deportations to the concentration camps. Archer doesn't overly dramatize passages, but she does adopts an appropriate tone of gravity. For the few humorous incidents she uses a lighter tone. The author's incredible memory makes her story come to life, but the degree of detail sometimes slows down the narrative. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2016]