The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in WWII

The long-awaited translation of the classic oral history of Soviet women's experiences in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich set out to write her first book, The Unwomanly Face of War, when she realized that she grew up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War but whose stories were absent from official narratives. Travelling thousands of miles, she spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.

After completing the manuscript in 1983, Alexievich was not allowed to publish it because it went against the state-sanctioned history of the war. With the dawn of Perestroika, a heavily censored edition came out in 1985 and it became a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union.

I picked up a copy of this title by chance in a local bookshop. I found it provides a fascinating insight into the stories of the Soviet women who served - and in some cases their husbands and relatives too - but also into the author's process of finding, meeting and recording of these stories. I found there are a number of similarities to Stud Terkel's The Good War, so if you found that title interesting, I would highly recommend The Unwomanly Face of War.

Available from:
Penguin

The Third Reich in 100 Objects - A Material History of Nazi Germany

The Third Reich is a continued subject of fascination. Numerous documentaries, of widely varying quality, can be found on television every day; newspaper articles and stories feature stories relating to the Nazis on a weekly basis, and publishers are producing new books on the subject which appear on the shelves of the high street booksellers.

However, most of these do not represent the personal angle of the period that Roger Moorhouse has cast light upon in The Third Reich in 100 Objects. Moorhouse has complied a widely diverse collection of items from Nazi Germany. Each item is pictured, and has a detailed description of its relevance to the German citizen, or indeed the German leadership in some cases.

The items included vary widely, from the 'celebrity items' which were presumably souvenirs taken by enthusiastic Allied soldiers - and then probably shown to friends and relatives, before eventually ending up in private collections or museums (Hitler's moustache brush, Eva Braun's lipstick case, Goring's cyanide capsule); to equipment and weapons used by the German military (the stick grenade, MP 40 submachine gun, the V-2 missile); items familiar to the German citizen (Nazi eagle, ration cards, Elastolin toy figures, Nazi Party Haustafel); to the shocking range of items linked with the Holocaust (Der Ewige Jude film poster, Treblinka brooch, Zyklon-B canister, and the Stolperstein - Stumbling Stone memorial - for Georg Elser, who attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1939, and who was executed at Dachau in 1945).

This is not an easy read but it is digestible and provides a fascinating insight, and therefore it is a valuable addition to the literature on this subject. For the reader, each object can be examined in isolation, which is probably the only way the book can be read. However, it is often uncomfortable to see how the Nazi regime implanted itself in every aspect of life, and how its impact on the world can continue to be felt even today.

Available from:
Greenhill Books