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

I first was interested in this book as my late husband ran US Army intelligence operations in Berlin; he retired from that post about a year before the author arrived as a junior intelligence officer. Her stories rang true. As harrowing as her family history was living through so much toil and oppression, it was her skill in writing it that made this memoir fresh and compelling.

I could relate to this book because I was in the East German Labor revolt of 1953 in East Berlin. I was 6 years old traveling on the subway to West Berlin from the East with my mother on June 17. The train stopped in East Berlin with the announcement that they were on strike. Everyone off! We walked up the stairs and saw 2 Soviet soldiers with guns right next to us climbing into their tank. As we rounded the corner to go 1 block to the West Berlin border, there were thousands of workers on strike and the tank started going into the crowd. I was holding onto my mother as we made it to the border where West German police had put up sandbags across the street. We climbed over the sandbags into West Berlin just as the Russians in the tank started shooting into the crowd. I kept hearing the guns firing throughout the day. I remember the day also because June 17 was my fathers birthday - but this day I would never forget!

Seen from the perspectives of members of four generations, this captivating memoir of a family torn apart by the division of Germany after WWII had me riveted from the first page to the last. I read it in two sittings, and I had to wipe splashes of tears off my glasses over and over again.Reading history can be a dispassionate experience, particularly when done from a safe distance of time or geography. But to bear witness to the irreparable wounds inflicted upon innocent people provides a context from which there is no escape without empathy.I knew very little about the circumstances around the breakup of Germany after the war, but now I am motivated to learn more. This book was a moving reminder of the power of a story well told.This is not the work of a novelist or wordcrafter. This is a sparsely told story of perseverance, bravery, and the impact of a soul-crushing emasculation of an entire country at the hands of criminal despots allowed to rule without accountability.

I loved during this time and really never paid much attention to the news. It was a history lesson for me and why socialism is not what I want for my country the US

Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall, by Nina Willner, is both a heart-wrenching, inspiring true story of a family torn asunder by political repression and a clear-eyed, detailed history of the East German regime's forty-year reign. From the uncertainty and chaos in the wake of the Allied victory at the end of World War II to the building, strengthening, and deadly enforcing of the Berlin Wall; from the constant restriction of the people's rights to the joyous celebration at the restoration of a free society and the destruction of the Wall, we see both the big historical picture and the more intimate human one. World figures such as East German leader Erich Honecker, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev loom large, but so do the members of the family in question, who happen to be the author's grandmother, grandfather, mother (Hanna, who escapes East Germany, marries a U.S. Army intelligence officer and Holocaust survivor, and comes to America), aunts, uncles, and cousins. The story becomes even more personal when the author's brother Albert, born and raised in the U.S. like the author and the rest of her siblings, makes a typical 1970s college student's trip to Europe and manages, with a friend, to slip into the East for a brief visit with the family. The most exciting passages in the book, however, rivaled only by Hanna's heroic escape to the West, are when Ms. Willner herself, a pioneering female U.S. Army intelligence officer, sallies forth on spy missions in East Berlin, risking capture (and worse), evading those sent to tail her, and showing steely poise and resolve when confronted by armed and aggressive authorities. These scenes alternate, to great literary effect, with a chronicle of young cousin Cordula's progress in becoming a contender on East Germany's Olympic women's cycling team. The two cousins, one East German, one American, unwittingly strive toward their separate goals simultaneously, mere miles apart, a fact they only discover later after they meet. The reunion of Hanna and her family with the East German clan is indelibly moving, and a tribute to the courage and optimism of family members holding fast to their beliefs, keeping faith with one another, and remaining true to themselves. This book is an enlightening and ultimately uplifting work of nonfiction, well worth reading.

First, full disclosure: the subject matter herein (post WWII Europe, the Cold War and the Berlin Wall) I find to be the most interesting of topics to read about, so if my review is bias, my apologies. That said, of the dozens of books I've read on the aforementioned topics, this one ranks #1, and if I may be so bold, is one of the best books (if not THE best) books I've ever read on ANY topic. It is at once historically informative and wrought with emotion , never ponderous or preachy, and reads like a fast paced, albeit heartbreaking , novel. It takes us through the post war Soviet occupation of Eastern Germany , the construction of the Wall and its eventual collapse and subsequent reunification of the two Germanys, and all the horrors in between , all told through the eyes of one family that lived it. If there is one book that should be read regarding this monumentally important period of history , and the abhorrent stain on human history that the Wall was, this is it. Given the recent incredulous embracing of socialism and push for more governmental power by some Americans these days , it is more relevant than ever. A must read for any human being with a pulse, but be warned, it will evoke chills and tears . Never take freedom for granted !

An excellent book that tells us what life was like on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, starting at the end of WWII and finishing with a reunified Germany. Can highly recommend it both as one family's story and as a reminder of how regimes, if allowed, can distort lives and control people.It could have benefitted from an edit in places, but that didn't in any way detract from the story.

Having just visited the amazing city of Berlin, I have become a little obsessed with the history of the place. This book was recommended and I’m so glad I read it. I learnt so much more about the life that went on behind the wall that I now need to visit the city again!Written in a narrative style that makes for compulsive reading, but based on a true story that leaves the reader both in awe and horror at what the author’s mother and her fellow East German’s went through.My book group are now reading this too.

Being a true life account of what happened to the author's family, this book is excellently written. The stories are with lots of detail and you get a good understanding of what it must have been like to live in this time. Impeccable research into the regimes but it certainly doesn't bog things down. It's easy to read, very gripping and I would recommend it highly.

I enjoyed reading this and it was unbelievable what the people of East Germany went through. I like booksthat are accompanied with photos and at the front of the book there are some explanatory notes and atimeline of what has happened in Germany since the Second World War.

This is a must read book. Anyone familiar with Berlin during the Cold War should read this, and a big eye opener to those who weren’t.