From the biography: Sociologist Irawati Karve’s first impressions of Berlin after World War One

Irawati had never before seen a metropolis like Berlin. The wide main streets streamed with every conceivable kind of traffic – people on foot and on bicycles, motorcycles with sidecars, cars, horse carts, she once even saw a dog dragging a small wheelbarrow. The vastly varied architecture felt familiar to her at first glance, but not if she looked closer. Fascinating and deep contrasts ran through every aspect of the city. There were opulent buildings, like the new shopping palace that took up a whole city block and had its own metro rail stop, or the enormous restaurants with tables spilling out onto tree-lined sidewalks, and then there were the concrete slums, each with a single street door that led to an endless labyrinth of courtyards, where families were packed into small, unhygienic rooms with several households sharing a single toilet.

The incessant sound of human life – couples fighting, babies crying, tired mothers screaming – emanated from within. Irawati noticed the washing hanging out of the windows, the visibly underfed, rickets-ridden children playing in dirty alleyways and yards where the sun never reached them. She was assailed by the smell of boiled cabbage that hung over these tenements, punctuated by the...

Read more