Marta’s Russian skills make her a known person among the soldiers they ask her for help with everything from sewing to finding a woman.

The major’s temperament contrasts with Anatol’s while Anatol’s attitudes are rough, the major presents with a more refinement and politeness. She hears rumors that Anatol will be leaving, but she meets a new officer-the major, an older man with a wounded leg-and enters into a similar arrangement with him. Marta continues her diary into the month of May, describing the sexual violence suffered by the women of Berlin throughout the duration of the Russian occupation. Anatol returns to her most nights for sex and brings his men with him they turn the widow’s apartment into a makeshift HQ. Marta meets Russian soldiers who are not merely violent rapists, and she speaks about politics with one soldier named Andrei. She provides him with sex, and he provides her with protection and food. She finds a lieutenant named Anatol and the two enter into an arrangement. Marta decides that she needs to find a senior officer to protect her from the many men who chase after her. Women are scared to leave their shelters. The women she knows share stories, confiding in one another about how they have been raped and helping one another to deal with the trauma. Marta tries to use her Russian skills to ask senior officers for help, but the officers do not care about the plight of Marta and her neighbors. Already drunk, they look inside buildings, raping any women they find. She hopes that her knowledge of the language will help her survive. As the Russians draw closer, Marta tries to remember the little Russian she knows. One day, Marta’s apartment is hit by an artillery shell and she moves in with a widow who lives on the first floor of their building.

Society is collapsing and everyone is worried. She gathers with the other residents of her building in a basement shelter, where rumors of rape and violence abound.

A German woman named Marta scavenges for what little food she can find. The Russian army is at the edge of Berlin, and the city is about to fall. The diary begins on Friday 20 April 1945, Hitler’s 56th birthday.

Marta hillers a woman in berlin