Berlin

The novel takes place predominantly in Berlin where a character called the Visitor meets with various citizens to discuss their pasts, predominantly events surrounding the second World War. The Berliners note the many privations they suffered during the war, including eating horse meat and resorting to prostitution in order to survive. The Visitor tours concentration camps and nursing homes, parks, cafes, the Berlin Zoo, and even a Nazi sex club to talk to those who remember the war. The author's purpose in conveying these anecdotes is to demonstrate that the Holocaust left scars upon the city that are still felt in the present day. In "Amnesia," Kaspar Seidel remarks that "Berlin's modern architecture is striking, forward-looking, intent on expunging its past" (98). However, what is most apparent upon reading these stories is that the city's darkest days can never be expunged. Memories of the war carry on in the...