Eva's Berlin : Memories of a Wartime Childhood

by Eva Wald Leveton

Book Overview

A half-Jewish girl grows up in Berlin, Germany during World War II. Separated from her father, who manages to escape to the U.S through Holland, she and her mother live with her grandparents. She is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965495167
• ISBN13: 9780965495165
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Thumbprint Press
• Length: 407 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Must Read for All Ages

This brave and spirited Berlin child takes us through her years in that war-torn country. While living with her Aryan mother and grandparents, her Jewish father having fled with his life to America, she describes a gripping tale of survival, rich in historical detail. This is also a poignant story of the girl's family as well as her own coming of age. The author has obviously integrated her life , her psyche and times , and we, the readers, learn a great deal about the whole gamut of human experience from innocence and wounding to survival and healing. The words are painted on the page with bold, powerful strokes of honesty and emotion, colored in with soft hues of feminine similes and metaphors, sprinkled delightfully with her own astonishingly beautiful poetry, and etched golden with her deep reservoir of hope and spirituality. It has taken Eva Leveton 62 years to write this book, and we all bow to her strength, spiritedness, and talent.

A Holocaust story without hatred

Eva's Berlin is the story of a young, half-Jewish girl growing up in Nazi Germany during World War II. Eva's Jewish father escaped to the United States, while she and her mother had to remain in Berlin. She is always in danger of being found out. She suffers the shortages of war. Her life is endangered by Allied air raids. Yet she remains a child, tending her little garden and visiting the zoo. Eva's ability to make the best of a frightening situation is the most touching aspect of her account. She emerged from the war as someone who, despite many terrible hardships, managed to avoid feeling hatred toward anyone.

inside the whirlwind

Little Eva evokes in us childhood memories of things we don't fully comprehend, but experience at a gut level. We're inside the whirlwind with her getting through each day, trying to live in the child's world, which is constantly being interrupted by the adult world and adult goings on. We see through her eyes, almost as pure experience, without judgment or rancor. Ms. Leveton recounts the Berlin of her childhood with a humanity and a love that overcomes our suspicion of the Germans. These are people who are trying to find their way in a world beyond their control, much as we are. Eva takes us where few of us have stepped, and I feel very enriched by having had the opportunity to share this journey with her.Mike Spring

A must read!

The world has discovered a brilliant new writer through the voice of this young girl living in Berlin during World War II. It is a compelling memoir, and the readers of all ages will have a hard time putting it down! This brave and spirited Berlin child, born in 1934, takes us through her years in that war-torn country. While living with her Aryan mother and grandparents, her Jewish father having fled with his life to America, she describes a gripping tale of survival, rich in historical detail. This is also a poignant story of the girl's family as well as her own coming of age. The author has obviously integrated her life, her psyche and times, and we, the readers, learn a great deal about the whole gamut of human experience from innocence and wounding to survival and healing. The words are painted on the page with bold, powerful strokes of honesty and emotion, colored in with soft hues of feminine similes and metaphors, sprinkled delightfully with her own astonishingly beautiful poetry, and etched golden with her deep reservoir of hope and spirituality. It has taken Eva Leveton 62 years to write this book, and we all bow to her strength, spiritedness, and talent. --Nancy Spring

Eva's Berlin Deserves Praise

Intelligently written, I looked forward to picking this book up every evening to enter again the author's vivid world of childhood, adolescence, the devastation of war time Berlin and the contrast to post war San Francisco. The author re-enters her life as a bright, plucky little girl enthusiastically and authentically. The voice of the child, moderated by the years of the adult is both unique and deeply thoughtful. As a result, the reader also enters into this dramatic time and place through universal themes of family relationships and the joys and confusions of growing up. I found the book extremely fascinating,compelling and heartful.