A Woman in Berlin: Reappraising Mass Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Public Health

Abstract

Abstract Preventing sexual and gender-based violence—and mitigating its devastating impacts on individuals and societies—is a central challenge of public health. A Woman in Berlin is 34-year-old journalist Marta Hillers’s first-hand account of life during the 1945 Red Army occupation of Berlin at the conclusion of World War II, when Russian soldiers collectively raped 2 million German civilians. Reflecting upon Hillers’s testimony, I argue that historical narratives about large-scale acts of sexual and gender-based violence deserve a more central place in public health discourse. I also question how the ethical challenges of memorializing and studying mass crimes might inform future public health efforts to advance gender equity and mitigate sexual violence globally.