‘Smile, nod, and don’t breathe a word of what happens here. Or I’ll put you on the next train to Auschwitz myself.’ Four years later. Hanni Winter shivers in her thin coat as she hurries through the empty Berlin streets to her job. Despite the freezing winter and poverty all around, her cheeks flush when she meets […]
The Berlin blockade, 1948–9: the first Cold War stand-off
Catherine Hokin, author of The Pilot’s Girl, looks at the Berlin Blockade of 1948–9 – the first Cold War stand-off – and how the western Allies responded. “History is written by the victors” is one of those phrases that is repeated so often it has turned into a cliché. To a writer interested in the […]


