Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today

Living in Berlin under the Nazis combined extremes: tens of thousands of Jews were deported to death camps, non‑Jews endured a police state, and the city was bombed day and night in the war’s final years. Those horrors were often visible — Jews marched from wealthy Grunewald to the railway, neighbors dragged from their homes, prisoners screaming in forced‑labor camps — and yet many people looked away and tried to carry on.

The author’s interest began with letters from his father, a student deported to Germany as a forced laborer, who described ordinary life alongside extraordinary violence: concerts held under roofs full of bomb damage, full cinemas, soccer matches, zoo visits and sunbathers by the Wannsee even as the city unraveled.

Such normalcy reflected fear, but also a more dangerous inclination — the hope that each new outrage would be temporary. When legal and moral norms are eroded incrementally, people adapt.

Germany, Berlin

berlin, nazis, jews, deportations, death camps, forced labor, police state, bombing, wannsee, grunewald