Author:Helga Schneider,Shaun Whiteside
Abandoned by her mother, who left to pursue a career as a camp guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, loathed by her step-mother, cooped up in a cellar, starved, parched, lonely amidst the fetid crush of her neighbours, Helga Schneider endured the horrors of wartime Berlin. The Bonfire of Berlin is a searing account of her survival. The grinding misery of hunger, combined with the terror of air-raids, the absence of fresh water and the constant threat of death and disease served not to unite the tenants and neighbours of her apartment block but rather to intensify the minor irritations of communal life into flashpoints of rage and violence. And with Russian victory the survivors could not look forward a return to peacetime but rather to pillage and rape. It was only gradually that Schneider's life returned to some kind of normality, as her beloved father returned from the front, carrying his own scars of the war. This shocking book evokes the reality of life in a wartime city in all its brutality and deprivation, while retaining a kernel of hope that while life remains not all is lost.
Praise for Let Me Go
'A powerful, painful book'
'Frightening and fascinating'
—— Mail on Sunday'Grips the reader completely...so powerful'
—— Glasgow Herlad'Desperately sad and powerful...Unforgettable'
—— Jewish TelegraphExcellent... The First World War tells the story with passion, sanity and the military historian's eye for overall strategy.
—— Andrew Roberts , Mail on SundayBeautifully written and full of telling detail... The best overall account for the general reader that has appeared since that of Cyril Falls nearly forty years ago.
—— Michael Howard , Times Literary SupplementA splendid achievement. Many years of research, distilled with craft and conveyed in meticulous prose, make this the definitive book on the Great War… An enthralling and often very moving account of one of the great tragedies of modern history
—— Good Book GuideOpens a unique window onto bleak interlocking landscapes-the radicalization of European Muslims that has now been energized by the Syrian civil war, the leadership and organization of global jihad, and the twilight struggle waged by western intelligence agencies against an elusive and implacable enemy."
—— Steven Simon, bestselling co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next AttackMorten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, and Tim Lister tell an astonishing and unknown tale of the exploits, change of allegiances, double crosses and inner workings of both al Qaeda terrorist groups and the Western intelligence agencies charged with stopping them. Hard to put down
—— Mitch Silber, former Director of Intelligence Analysis at the NYPD and author of The Al Qaeda FactorRemarkable. As a true spy-story, this book brings you incredibly close to what it actually takes to be an extremist and get into a terrorist group while balancing loyalty and treachery in the world of intelligence. Essential reading for everyone interested in how the war on terrorism is actually fought in the shadows.
—— Dr. Magnus Ranstorp, a leading expert on international terrorismReads like a first-rate spy thriller, but it is in fact a stunning and true inside account of the workings, personalities and mindsets of the leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and its worldwide operations . . . an indispensable guide to how the West can counter the appeal of violent jihadism
—— Washington TimesGripping... provides valuable and fascinating insight into the quiet battle being waged between clandestine national agencies and various terrorist organizations
—— Christian Science Monitor