The 20-year-old Pole Czeslawa Sidor was one of the tens of thousands of women conscripted into forced labour in Berlin. During the chaos of the Battle of Berlin at the end of April 1945, she set off on foot for her home country.

Ralph Neumann grew up in Berlin as the son of Jewish parents. In early 1943, the then 16 year old Neumann eluded deportation to a concentration camp and went underground. Two weeks before the capitulation of Nazi Germany, he participated in an action of resistance in Berlin against the regime’s morale-boosting slogans.

The Reifeisen family was an ‘ordinary’ Jewish family, whose fate is exemplary for the destruction of European Jewry during the Second World War. Ilse Reifeisen, the daughter, luckily survived, but her parents, Simon and Gertrud Anna Reifeisen, shared the fate of many other victims of ghettos and camps. Gertrud died in Stutthof whereas Simon’s death is unknown.

The battle of Berlin was one of the last battles of the Second World War in Europe. The war that had proceeded from Berlin returned to the city. Many soldiers and civilians died in widespread house-to-house fighting.

Encircling the capital city of Berlin, the region of Brandenburg was fought over fiercely during WWII. The areas of former battlefields are now brimming with historic sites where you can further your knowledge of German history. In the town of