What I’m Reading

KAREN HORN is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University. She has travelled to at least three of the four corners of the Earth. With a Master’s degree in history from Edinburgh University, followed by a PhD at Stellenbosch, she now spends many hours of research reading diaries, interrogating older generations and rummaging around in the archives. For her book In Enemy Hands South African POWs in World War II, she painstakingly tracked down a number of former POWs. Together with written memoirs and archival documents, their interviews reveal rich narratives of hardship, endurance, humour, longing and self-discovery.

WHEN reading about seemingly ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, it quickly becomes clear that there is no such thing as ordinary. The story of A Woman in Berlin is one such example. As the belligerent Red Army approached Berlin in 1945, the people of that city faced fresh atrocities, and how they dealt with those sets them apart from the ordinary.

When the book was first published in 1959, there was some debate about the author’s identity, but this is somewhat beside the point because the message is more important. It shows us how muddy some concepts can be, especially those of “hero”, “enemy” and even “ally”. But most of all, the book tells the story of the futility of war and violence.

I enjoy this book because as I read of each event during the fall of Berlin, I think of where the former prisoners of war were at that time and how close they were to liberation. Although the last days were hell, some of them were already thinking about what they would have for Sunday lunch once they got home.

Other books I keep close at hand are Newman’s Birds of Southern Africa and Indigenous Plant Palettes by Marijke Honig. Birds and gardens are inspiring, they put things into