S8 Ep843: Ian Buruma details the "U-boats," young Jews living clandestine lives in Berlin without legal papers. He describes the city's descent into lawlessness following the defeat at Stalingrad. Survival became transactional, relying on the goodwill or opportunis
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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1945 BERLIN
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| 1:12.8 | For full terms, visit the QVC website. I'm John Bachelor with Ian Baruma. |
| 1:33.8 | The new book is Stay Alive, Berlin, 1939 and 1945. |
| 1:38.6 | Von C. Conference in a beautiful neighborhood around a lake that becomes a center of summertime pleasure. |
| 1:44.6 | There's photograph in his book of all of the German families and young people crowded on this beach |
| 1:51.9 | with two German soldiers staring at them with big grins on their faces. |
| 1:57.3 | So it's middle of the war, but at the same time, Vancey is the place we associate with the order to exterminate the Jews. However, Ian, what was a U-boat? |
| 2:08.6 | A U-boat, of course, means a German Navy submarine. But the word was used for Jews, mostly young Jews, because you had to be young and healthy and fit to be able to live a life of enormous risk and hardship. But it's Jews who decided to take off the yellow star and go into hiding and live a clandestine life, which was extremely |
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