This book gives more detail about how someone who really didn't agree with being a Nazi went along to get along and did it to survive. It is amazing how people think they know what they would do, but really have no idea until they have to make decisions. The author's grandfather went through his own hell and she portrays him as if he really didn't understand completely what was going on but I think that with the atrocities most people tried to not understand. The book was really good and what a great historical research that was done to understand the family history.

I have always been much more interested about the recovery from WWII that the war itself. How did those people so seriously damaged by the war manage to pull themselves back together. Both from a mental/emotional side of things as well as the physical. How do the children of the members of the Nazi party reconcile with what their parents and grandparents were a part of (willingly or not as the case may be) Robinson's beloved grandfather fits into that catagory. Once she finds his diaries and discovers his envolvement, she has to digest this information, The conflicts that all of this raises, the contrasts between the man she knew and the man during the war are almost insurmountable. The book has stayed with me for a long time.

The Holocaust is one of the most devastating, troubling failures of human kind in the twentieth century.

Gabrielle Robinson attempts to encapsulate a human aspect of the Holocaust in a way that’s personal to her. Specifically, uncovering her grandfather’s Nazi past and his voluntary enlistment with the Nazi party.

Though not a soldier sent to the front lines, Robinson’s grandfather served as an eye doctor in Germany, a kind and gentle man that Robinson goes to great pains to wrestle with how the memories and vision of the grandfather she has could be so tied up in the grand scope of the horrors of Nazi Germany. As a German herself, Robinson goes to great pains to try and reason through the nuance of what this could mean for an everyday German, what explanations could possibly be given and how the German people themselves made these every day decisions.

Yet even with this nuance, it was particularly difficult for me to swallow. Robinson goes in excruciating pains not to excuse the deeply troubling implications that her grandfather’s willingness in signing up for the Nazi party means from a historical perspective yet is invariably biased by virtue of him being her grandfather – a man who was by all accounts kind, gentle and loving and yet aligned himself with a party that systematically murdered millions. An apathy towards the plights of the Jewish people along with the other millions who were murdered at the hands of ordinary Germans makes separating the party and the person that much more difficult for me, one that Robinson herself seems to recognize as difficult.

Filled with nuance and a deep self-reflection, Api’s Berlin Diaries would be best suited for someone interested in learning more about the perspective of every day Germans living and working not just under, but for the Nazi party. I found that for me, I could not help but think of the millions of lives members of the Nazi party destroyed.

I have so many thoughts about this book. I spent a semester and a summer in Germany in college and earned a major in German. I’m fascinated by German history, and this book offered fascinating insight into a normal man’s experiences during an impossible time.

First, I want more books like this. We have seen so much fiction and nonfiction about WWII, but relatively little exploring the emotional after effects.

Second, even though I’m not sure I agree with everything the author said about her grandfather’s choices, I love the way she told the story.

Finally, I want to talk about the solid writing and uniqueness of the memoir topic. I didn’t rush through this one; I read it slowly and even stopped and put it down for a week before finishing. I wanted to mull parts of it over. I encourage anyone reading this one to take their time and let some chapters percolate if needed.

Even if you’re not interested in WWII history, this is an interesting memoir just from a family dynamic perspective.


I highly recommend! Thank you @booksforwardpr for my complimentary copy!

I looked forward to reading about the grandfather, but it seemed too drawn out and I had to put it down. I am su.re others enjoyed it. The characters just seemed wooden.

This book is written about the author's grandfather's time as a Nazi. He never talked about those years so when she discovered a diary that he kept, she went to the places he wrote about to try and make sense of why the grandfather she loved so much would do such heinous things. This is not the typical memoir of the war, as it focuses on a former Nazi that had been forced to commit the heinous acts of the time.

I received an advanced copy of this book from She Writes Press and Books Froward in exchange for an honest review.

When I first heard of Api's Berlin Diaries, I expected this to be more diary-like entries. Instead, we get a woman struggling with coming to terms with her kind, gentle grandfather being a member of the Nazi Party. There were many selections of the diary entries throughout that Robinson placed in context with what was going on in the time period.

Of course, when someone finds out that a family member did something awful or was a member of something horrible, we balk. We want to forget or obfuscate. I'm reminded of the show Finding Your Roots where Ben Affleck tries to hide the fact that his ancestors were slave owners. On the same show, Anderson Cooper took the approach of laughing about his ancestors and saying that one of them deserved to be killed by a slave. There are different approaches to take, whether the family member was a Nazi or a Slaveowner, we all have to come to terms with our past.

Unfortunately, Gabrielle Robinson has only begun to do that in the early 2000s when she found her grandfather's diaries. It was a common theme throughout this book of the author's family not recognizing or realizing their guilt of what happened to Jews in Germany.

What was difficult about this book is the fact that Api was living in Soviet controlled Berlin, which was horribly bombed with most people living in slums and many people dying of illness due to a lack of health and infrastructure. Yet, Api is part of a political organization, the Nazis, that destroyed Jewish homes and businesses. The Nazis killed millions of Jews. I recognize that what Api went through was horrendous, and the fact that he was never an active member does make it better (only marginally). While Api never participated in the party, was never an active member, he still saw the atrocities and did nothing. He voted for Hitler because he agreed with what Hitler and the party stood for when Hitler was rising to power. Yes, many people changed their minds after the fact, but there is never any mention of this in his diaries.

This is something the author struggles with throughout this memoir/biography. She does a great job of balancing out the atrocities of what happened in the war, while trying to understand why her grandfather joined the Nazi Party. She questions if his silence implies that he agrees with any of the racism that costs millions of lives, if silence itself a sign of guilt.

It's hard to imagine our family members perpetrating atrocities. Earlier, I compared what happened in Germany to Slavery in America. Both are atrocities of different kinds but atrocities nonetheless. However, the most similar parts remain with the ones who are left, with Germans who have to recognize their ancestors part in the Holocaust and Americans who have to recognize their ancestors part in owning Slaves.

The last chapter Robinson is trying to come to terms with this "wide field." She states "A silence that is almost a crime is a chilling specter that lays its finger on many, if not all, of us and makes innocence impossible. I am reminded again of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail," in which he condemned not only the actions of bad people but the silence of the good. Yet, in telling Api's story, I did not want to condemn him. I wanted to be one of those who break the silence, sometimes referred to as the German's "second guilt," and recount and account as clearly as I could. I found this led to unwelcome discoveries and an uncomfortable questioning of my family history. But it also brought up kernels of insight from the buried past."

In the end, all of us have to look at this "wide field" and come to terms with what happened. To recognize what our ancestors did or did not do. Yes, it is true that all of us were not there, nor can we go back because as far as I know, no one has invented the TARDIS; however, we have benefitted from our past and we are accountable for it.

This was a memoir unlike anything I’ve ever read. I also had to read this in parts, sit down, digest it and then pick it up again.

I think we read so much WWII fiction from a certain side we fail to see there are other sides to it. In this memoir, the author finds her beloved grandfathers diary of his time as an eye surgeon and a Nazi. The author never heard firsthand accounts from her grandfather- only reading about his service in his diary.
The author travels to Berlin to the places mentioned in the diary revealing the wars scars. She also goes back home where she lived with her grandparents following the war.

I loved that the author spoke of love and compassion. Many Nazis were forced into service and didn’t have a choice- how sad.

I loved the history of this book and the love the author has for her grandfather. If your looking for a memoir that has history and pulls at your heart definitely read this! Pub date is September 15th!

Thanks to @booksforwardpr for my gifted ebook copy!

I approached this thinking it'd be similar to A Woman in Berlin: 8 Weeks in a Conquered City. That was quite literally the diary of a woman in conquered Berlin. This was completely different. This author was simply trying to come to terms with the fact that her gentle, caring, selfless grandfather once was a member of one of the most genocidal regimes in humanity's history. Considering the author is nearing her 80's and is still wanting to tell and understand her grandfather's story, speaks of her immense love for him. She gives a LOT of detailed history going back decades, setting the stage for how the Holocaust and the Nazis were even able to happen.

Like most of her generation, Robinson grew up never hearing firsthand accounts of the war from her grandparents. This didn't save her from experiencing the consequences though. The most memorable is when a fellow student told her, "You made soap out of my aunt." I think a lot of what she says apples to the current political and social stresses in the US today. She speaks of using love and compassion to look beyond the politics and see the heart of the individual. In a climate of "you're a Republican therefore you must also be a racist" or "you're a Democrat so you must hate America", she gives an excellent illustration of why you can't make judgements of a group based on the actions of individual. Not sure I worded that well, but I took her message as "not all members of a group are the same". We tend to look at "the Nazis" and think of one monochromatic group of the same evil purpose. It's easy to forget that many were forced into service. Many didn't have a choice - it was either join or die with your family. To me, that's not much of a choice when you're looking at your involvement children depending on you for survival.

It was so freaking difficult to rate this book. I only give 5 stars for books I can't put down, 4 stars for books I could put down but still really enjoyed, and 3 stars for books I didn't love but also didn't hate. This book is somewhere between 3 and 4. She does a great job of putting her grandfather in a sympathetic light without making excuses for his decisions. Her message is relevant. I feel almost disrespectful giving this a 3, but I just could not get into it enough for a 4. ALSO - no books outside textbooks should have 62 chapters. Good Lord, why.

It took me a long while as a reader to start to read any kind of historical books. But lately I am drawn to anything to do with WW2 and the horrors that occurred to innocent people. So this book intrigued me due to it being a true account and finding out someone you loved is not the person you thought.

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley.