Shelly Kupferberg – A novel about a fascinating life in Berlin

Martha wanders the streets of Schöneberg, ragged and bedraggled. Everyone knows her, yet no one knows who she really is: a millionaire – but not only that. In conversation with Monika Schärer about *Stunden wie Tage*, Shelly Kupferberg explains how she uncovered Martha’s secret.

Berlin, in the 1940s: Martha E. is hard-working and extremely thrifty. These are good qualities for the job as a caretaker, which she holds in the Berkowitz brothers’ apartment block in Schöneberg. Liane Berkowitz comes from a good family; she is a curious and fun-loving girl who, in the midst of the war, discovers love – and the resistance against the Nazis. Martha, the ragged landlady, bears witness to Liane’s fateful life.

In her novel, for which she conducted meticulous research, Shelly Kupferberg tells the story of how Martha went from being a caretaker to a landlady. She herself recalls Martha’s appearance: ‘Her name was Martha; she had long, white, matted hair down to her knees and looked like a city vagrant. Yet she was supposedly a millionaire. It was said she owned a residential building that she had ‘slept her way to’ during the Nazi era. That made me curious. Who was this woman really? I wanted to know.”