Mendl Mann’s autobiographical novel The Fall of Berlin tells the painful yet compelling story of life as a Jewish soldier in the Red Army. Menakhem Isaacovich is a Polish Jew who, after fleeing the Nazis, finds refuge in the USSR. Translated into English from the original Yiddish by Maurice Wolfthal, the narrative follows Menakhem as he fights on the front line in Stalin’s Red Army against Hitler and the Nazis who are destroying his homeland of Poland and exterminating the Jews.
Menakhem encounters anti-Semitism on various occasions throughout the novel, and struggles to comprehend how seemingly normal people could hold such appalling views. As Mann writes, it is odd that "vicious, insidious anti-Semitism could reside in a person with elevated feelings, an average person, a decent person”. The Fall of Berlin is both a striking and timelylook at the struggle that many Jewish soldiers faced.
An affecting and unique book, which eloquently explores a variety of themes – such as anti-Semitism, patriotism, Stalinism and life as a Jewish soldier in the Second World War – this is essential reading for anyone interested in the Yiddish language, Jewish history, and the history of World War II.
Mendl Mann’s 'The Fall of Berlin'
Translated and with an Introduction by Maurice Wolfthal | December 2020
250 pp. | 3 colour illustrations | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781800640771
ISBN Hardback: 9781800640788
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800640795
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800640801
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800640818
ISBN Hardback: 9781800640788
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800640795
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800640801
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800640818
ISBN Digital (XML): 9781800640825
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0233
BIC Subject Codes: JFC (Cultural Studies), HBLW (20th century history), JFSR1 (Jewish studies), 1DFG (Germany); BISAC: HIS022000 (HISTORY / Jewish), HIS010010 (HISTORY / Europe / Eastern), HIS037070 (HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century); OCLC Number: 1227026321.
English translation, Introduction and Notes © 2020 Maurice Wolfthal

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Friedrich Schiller. Mendl Mann’s 'The Fall of Berlin'. English translation, Introduction and Notes by Maurice Wolfthal. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0233