While visiting the Plötzensee Memorial, I learned that the Hampels (the couple from the Alone in Berlin story) had lived in Wedding. So I decided to take the S Bahn and have a look. There's not much to see, but someone who lives in the building let me in the gate so I could get a closer look at the plaque. At least these people are being remembered in some small way.
"Here stands the house in which Otto and Elise Hampel lived from 1934 until their arrest. The working class couple was executed on 8 April 1943 in Berlin Plotzensee. Their resistance against the nazi regime was the basis for the book Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada."
To see this on saturday morning is a bit sad and not a real good start of the day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for telling us about the book.
ReplyDeleteJust picked up at the bookstore. The woman who helped me find it read it herself originally in German, Germany have been her country of birth. She said she has read all Fallada's novels.
DeleteGood! I really loved the book. It was hard to put down and it really had me thinking for weeks afterwards.
DeleteI hope you got the latest translation by Michael Hoffman. That's the one I read and I heard his translation was truer than the previous version.
Hans Fallada is a very famous contemporary author in Germany. He died before this book was published from alcohol poisoning. He had his own demons. :(
it's just so incredible to think what these folks went through...
ReplyDeletePlaques. Interesting. They must be important. Somebody went and made them. Signify.
ReplyDeletePoignant.
ReplyDeleteGuess I have depressed people too much. Not many comments today. Tomorrow we will return to happier posts!
ReplyDeleteDepressing? Of course. But I'd rather some occasional depression than forgetting the lives of so many souls.
ReplyDeleteVery touching, this plaque. Thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWell, it is depressing, Hal. But it's also important to know that people inside Germany also suffered from Hitler's policies. War is not the way to solve much, I fear. You might solve a few things but cause others! Very sad in light of what's happening right now in our crazy world.
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