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Berlin Wild
"One of the best I've ever read." — Chicago Tribune
"Extraordinary power . . . Comic . . .Tragic . . . A spellbinder." — The Washington Post
"Earns four stars . . . A wonderful book . . . Read it, by all means, and give it to a friend." — San Francisco Chronicle
"This novel hooks the reader on the first page and does not let go." —USA Today
"Pain and laughter . . . The author had the genius to allow comedy to dominate this powerful story of struggle." — The Washington Book Review
Dr. Josef Bernhardt, an anesthesiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Iowa, has tried his whole life to shut out the events of his youth in Berlin during the 1940s, but one incident in his operating room pulls him right back…
It’s 1943, and sixteen-year-old Josef has been invited to leave his family and take up residence at the Wilhelm Institute of Berlin. Half-Jewish, he is unable to attend his high school due to Nazi laws, but as a mathematical genius, he has gained access to an opportunity that will assumedly spare and support him and eight other “special cases.”
Though Josef is unable to forget about the war and the unknown fate of his family for the two years the Institute offers him sanity and safety, he and the others manage to discover friendship, love, and generosity within and between each other. They work side by side, under the direction of Professor Avilov (The Chief), on genetic experiments and nuclear research—quietly attempting to sabotage the war that is funding their work. Each day for two years, Josef fears that the dreamlike opportunity he has been dropped into might shatter, and that the nightmare of the genocide and war outside will infiltrate his safe haven.
Berlin Wild is based on an astonishingly true story of survival.
"Extraordinary power . . . Comic . . .Tragic . . . A spellbinder." — The Washington Post
"Earns four stars . . . A wonderful book . . . Read it, by all means, and give it to a friend." — San Francisco Chronicle
"This novel hooks the reader on the first page and does not let go." —USA Today
"Pain and laughter . . . The author had the genius to allow comedy to dominate this powerful story of struggle." — The Washington Book Review
Dr. Josef Bernhardt, an anesthesiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Iowa, has tried his whole life to shut out the events of his youth in Berlin during the 1940s, but one incident in his operating room pulls him right back…
It’s 1943, and sixteen-year-old Josef has been invited to leave his family and take up residence at the Wilhelm Institute of Berlin. Half-Jewish, he is unable to attend his high school due to Nazi laws, but as a mathematical genius, he has gained access to an opportunity that will assumedly spare and support him and eight other “special cases.”
Though Josef is unable to forget about the war and the unknown fate of his family for the two years the Institute offers him sanity and safety, he and the others manage to discover friendship, love, and generosity within and between each other. They work side by side, under the direction of Professor Avilov (The Chief), on genetic experiments and nuclear research—quietly attempting to sabotage the war that is funding their work. Each day for two years, Josef fears that the dreamlike opportunity he has been dropped into might shatter, and that the nightmare of the genocide and war outside will infiltrate his safe haven.
Berlin Wild is based on an astonishingly true story of survival.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published January 3, 1986
123 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
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February 2, 2021
FAVORITE....
Sooooooo GOOD ....
[some of my friends understand my soooooo good expression]...
as in my goodness I loved this novel.
“While his Jewish aunts and uncles and finally his mother are sent to their deaths, Joseph Bernhardt, a mathematical genius, remains under the protection of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin only to suffer later for the people he loved and never mourned”. [no Kaddish]
We first meet Dr. Josef Bernhardt, anesthesiologist, in 1967, Iowa.
He was German, 43 years of age, (Jewish) >mother was Jewish>father was not.
We learn more about his family background later.
Josef was new to Iowa; new at the hospital, having just come down from McGill, Quebec, Canada. He was born in Berlin....grew up there.... during the war: Yeah, ‘that war’... The Holocaust.
But do not think for one minute there is anything ‘typical’.
For those who think they are saturated with WWII books....
This special gem... might change your mind. It’s not a graphic-war-overload.
Back at the start.. with Dr. Bernhardt.. new doctor on the floor ( women nurses eyeing him)....
Josef was a smoker ( hideaway smoker kinda)....
I sure wasn’t convinced that Josef’s smoking Camels was in his best interest....haha....who would be?
Remember, this was 1967. Smoking was rampant.
Josef’s blood pressure was astronomical.... but.... shhhh!
Hush, no tattle telling here!
At the start we quickly take-in the endearing flavorful personality profiles from the characters. Josef is a stand out — a male protagonist that could go toe-to-toe with the best of other male characters in our literary world. He’s sweet, he’s vulnerable, he’s smart as a whip, wise, and just enough of a pisher... to absolutely love!!
Plus....
the comic/tragic/heartfelt engaging dialogue is wonderfully written to be enjoyed.
At the hospital, Josef met with patient Auguste La Riviere, a 72 year old Black Man, a retired professor of chemistry.
Auguste was having a pilondial cyst removed the next morning —so Dr.Josef Bernhardt, being his anesthesiologist early the next morning —
had stepped into his hospital room to meet Auguste - a little chitchat about wine- and ask him a few needed questions. The rapport between the two men was an instant buddy-feeling. I liked them both. (every character is memorable-even this patient).
Auguste tells the doctor:
“There’s not a thing in the State of Iowa I’m allergic to but the radical bigots and being awaken in the middle of the night to be given a sleeping pill that they won’t tell me the name of”.
This was said in humor...but....there was truth to what Auguste told Josef.
So....Josef goes home to catch some sleep before returning to the hospital early the next morning. One wants their surgeons and anesthesiologist to be rested —on top of their game —
But that night — Josef had a horrific returning-nightmare—one he hadn’t had for twenty-two years, back in Berlin associated with the experiments he did on fruit flies.
Josef woke up nauseated with fatigue > ready to inject succinylcholine into Auguste.
Josef was the type of doctor who didn’t allow himself any holidays. He worked steadily since he first entered the Institute in 1943.
Josef ‘knew’.... it was time for him to resign — immediately — due to health concerns.
Sh! ...don’t be so sure.
The bulk of the story takes place in Berlin. Holocaust years. In April, 1943, nobody with Jewish blood was allowed to step foot into a German school. Josef’s mother was no longer permitted to practice medicine, and his father‘s law practice had fallen off. Josef himself was 16 and 1/2....not allowed to graduate from his high school but was allowed to ( hide out ?/!), from the Nazis and work at the Institute... because the kid was a genius.
Josef worked with Professor Kreutzer in the business of irradiating fruit flies—determining the physical aspects of the effects of ionizing radiation. We meet a team of professors.
The wild fruit flies in the park—the Drosophila melanogaster Berlin wild— were of mixed-breeds. ( the most vital)
The fruit flies that were purely bred in the Institute wouldn’t survive outside, only under laboratory conditions.
It was fascinating learning about the fruit flies- the laboratory experiments —
I still remember when we had a problem here in the bay area years ago with them.
‘Berlin Wall’ ... in its dual meaning...were not only fruit flies - but the dangers at end of the war. ( as we come to understand slowly through wonderful storytelling)
The genetics institute Elly Welt writes about was real. Besides the research work she did with fruit flies -
the scientists also made vodka in the laboratory - which added some humorous chuckles to the otherwise tragic story — that WWII always is.
Professor Krupinsky hated to admit it, “but the little pisher (Josef), knows what he’s talking about when it comes to machines. People, on the other hand, he doesn’t know from borscht”.
I loved the humor:
“He’s from superior stock, you know, said Krupinsky. He’s one of those high-toned Sephardic German Jews who won’t have anything to do with us low-class Ashkenazis”.
There was so much warmth - heart - interesting historical details —and humanity in “Berlin Wall”.
I recommend it to everyone.
We have *Michael*, long time Goodreads community mensch of a man and great contributor to thank!!!
It’s still a $1.99 Kindle download special.
Run, don’t walk as they say.
This is a treat read!
About the author:
Elly Welt.... she was a novelist, professor, and mother of three. She earned her bachelors degree from Morning-side College and her PhD from the University of Iowa’s writers workshop.
She met her husband in 1973: Peter Welt, a Berlin Native and retired anesthesiologist living in the
Canary Islands.
Peter became the love of her life and passed away in 1999.
Elly died in 2018
Sooooooo GOOD ....
[some of my friends understand my soooooo good expression]...
as in my goodness I loved this novel.
“While his Jewish aunts and uncles and finally his mother are sent to their deaths, Joseph Bernhardt, a mathematical genius, remains under the protection of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin only to suffer later for the people he loved and never mourned”. [no Kaddish]
We first meet Dr. Josef Bernhardt, anesthesiologist, in 1967, Iowa.
He was German, 43 years of age, (Jewish) >mother was Jewish>father was not.
We learn more about his family background later.
Josef was new to Iowa; new at the hospital, having just come down from McGill, Quebec, Canada. He was born in Berlin....grew up there.... during the war: Yeah, ‘that war’... The Holocaust.
But do not think for one minute there is anything ‘typical’.
For those who think they are saturated with WWII books....
This special gem... might change your mind. It’s not a graphic-war-overload.
Back at the start.. with Dr. Bernhardt.. new doctor on the floor ( women nurses eyeing him)....
Josef was a smoker ( hideaway smoker kinda)....
I sure wasn’t convinced that Josef’s smoking Camels was in his best interest....haha....who would be?
Remember, this was 1967. Smoking was rampant.
Josef’s blood pressure was astronomical.... but.... shhhh!
Hush, no tattle telling here!
At the start we quickly take-in the endearing flavorful personality profiles from the characters. Josef is a stand out — a male protagonist that could go toe-to-toe with the best of other male characters in our literary world. He’s sweet, he’s vulnerable, he’s smart as a whip, wise, and just enough of a pisher... to absolutely love!!
Plus....
the comic/tragic/heartfelt engaging dialogue is wonderfully written to be enjoyed.
At the hospital, Josef met with patient Auguste La Riviere, a 72 year old Black Man, a retired professor of chemistry.
Auguste was having a pilondial cyst removed the next morning —so Dr.Josef Bernhardt, being his anesthesiologist early the next morning —
had stepped into his hospital room to meet Auguste - a little chitchat about wine- and ask him a few needed questions. The rapport between the two men was an instant buddy-feeling. I liked them both. (every character is memorable-even this patient).
Auguste tells the doctor:
“There’s not a thing in the State of Iowa I’m allergic to but the radical bigots and being awaken in the middle of the night to be given a sleeping pill that they won’t tell me the name of”.
This was said in humor...but....there was truth to what Auguste told Josef.
So....Josef goes home to catch some sleep before returning to the hospital early the next morning. One wants their surgeons and anesthesiologist to be rested —on top of their game —
But that night — Josef had a horrific returning-nightmare—one he hadn’t had for twenty-two years, back in Berlin associated with the experiments he did on fruit flies.
Josef woke up nauseated with fatigue > ready to inject succinylcholine into Auguste.
Josef was the type of doctor who didn’t allow himself any holidays. He worked steadily since he first entered the Institute in 1943.
Josef ‘knew’.... it was time for him to resign — immediately — due to health concerns.
Sh! ...don’t be so sure.
The bulk of the story takes place in Berlin. Holocaust years. In April, 1943, nobody with Jewish blood was allowed to step foot into a German school. Josef’s mother was no longer permitted to practice medicine, and his father‘s law practice had fallen off. Josef himself was 16 and 1/2....not allowed to graduate from his high school but was allowed to ( hide out ?/!), from the Nazis and work at the Institute... because the kid was a genius.
Josef worked with Professor Kreutzer in the business of irradiating fruit flies—determining the physical aspects of the effects of ionizing radiation. We meet a team of professors.
The wild fruit flies in the park—the Drosophila melanogaster Berlin wild— were of mixed-breeds. ( the most vital)
The fruit flies that were purely bred in the Institute wouldn’t survive outside, only under laboratory conditions.
It was fascinating learning about the fruit flies- the laboratory experiments —
I still remember when we had a problem here in the bay area years ago with them.
‘Berlin Wall’ ... in its dual meaning...were not only fruit flies - but the dangers at end of the war. ( as we come to understand slowly through wonderful storytelling)
The genetics institute Elly Welt writes about was real. Besides the research work she did with fruit flies -
the scientists also made vodka in the laboratory - which added some humorous chuckles to the otherwise tragic story — that WWII always is.
Professor Krupinsky hated to admit it, “but the little pisher (Josef), knows what he’s talking about when it comes to machines. People, on the other hand, he doesn’t know from borscht”.
I loved the humor:
“He’s from superior stock, you know, said Krupinsky. He’s one of those high-toned Sephardic German Jews who won’t have anything to do with us low-class Ashkenazis”.
There was so much warmth - heart - interesting historical details —and humanity in “Berlin Wall”.
I recommend it to everyone.
We have *Michael*, long time Goodreads community mensch of a man and great contributor to thank!!!
It’s still a $1.99 Kindle download special.
Run, don’t walk as they say.
This is a treat read!
About the author:
Elly Welt.... she was a novelist, professor, and mother of three. She earned her bachelors degree from Morning-side College and her PhD from the University of Iowa’s writers workshop.
She met her husband in 1973: Peter Welt, a Berlin Native and retired anesthesiologist living in the
Canary Islands.
Peter became the love of her life and passed away in 1999.
Elly died in 2018
February 1, 2018
I am biased because my beloved grandmother wrote this novel, based on the life of her second husband. But I also truly believe this is a wonderful novel — funny, heartbreaking, true in a way that goes far beyond it’s literal truth (though a surprising amount of it is the literal truth!) — and recommend it to anyone and everyone. It feels particularly relevant now as we struggle to live in a world that feels less comprehensible by the day.
July 31, 2012
A Jewish boy is hidden from the Nazis in a laboratory dedicated to genetic studies of flies, which is poignantly ironic . He develops a virtual family among the technicians who work there and lives mainly off the corn meal used to feed the larvae. Information about the Holocaust is only filtered in indirectly, which is effective in the same way that violence is usually left to the imagination in Hitchcock movies. The boy evolves a resilient model of reality and humanity from the simple ingredients of what relationships and play he can sustain in this protected environment. The title and metaphor for the book relates to how at the end of the madness of war, he represents the "wild type" or un-mutated form of humanity. Very moving and beautiful.
February 11, 2021
In this heartfelt story about a physician wracked by survivor guilt, most of it takes place in Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the last two years of WW2. 16-year-old Josef Bernhardt is sent there for his safety, as he is half-Jewish. His childhood had been spent in the rarefied atmosphere of diplomatic and professional families where the war had been an almost irrelevant background and the danger to Jews had initially seemed distant; gradually however, the world closed in.
The Institute is an almost surreal anomaly – it is supposedly engaged in essential Nazi war work but in reality, is shielding many scientists and others from persecution. Josef, a mathematical prodigy, is set to work irradiating fruit flies in the genetic research division. The institute becomes a substitute family as his Jewish family members one by one are taken away. Eventually, he too is forced into a labour camp, but survives to return to the Institute, only to have to contend with the coming of the Red Army who dismantle the equipment and spirit away the remaining scientists to work in Russia.
Although this is a tale full of anguish, hunger, fear and anger, I thought there were hints of black comedy too: Josef’s obsession with making female conquests, one chemistry division’s focus on converting vast quantities of industrial alcohol to vodka, the limitless supply of certain foods (polenta - feed for the fruit flies, the result of a gross ordering error - and research rabbits, baked in the autoclave).
Initially that didn’t seem to sit right with the underlying horror, but it made a lot more sense framed as biography, when I found out that it had been inspired by Elly Welt’s husband’s experience during the war.
I can’t say if the events 22 years later were similarly based in reality, where Josef (like Welt’s husband) is now an anaesthesiologist. The Berlin years are sandwiched between three short sections following one day in 1967, where Josef realizes he has been in a depression since the end of the war. He moves through a crisis, contemplating suicide and talking to an old physician friend, before deciding to contact a rabbi to say Kaddish for all his family and friends who disappeared. Whether that did resolve his anguish is left open at the end.
But this part is over-detailed (a complete description of a surgical operation including all the drugs administered) and increasingly chaotic: an encounter with an anti-war protest, an aborted visit to a bookshop, a spell in a bar and a romp in bed with a nurse from his hospital all occur in the afternoon before he calls the rabbi. It simply lacks the coherence - and punch - of the earlier years.
One other thing, Welt’s depiction of women - primarily described by their attractiveness or lack of it - seems quite dated. I guess if this were her husband talking about his memory of the forties and sixties that would be understandable; not so much in a work of fiction, even for 1987 when she wrote it.
So, this could have been a 4-star memoir or something, but the later episode really pulled it down. Though I did learn a lot about fruit fly research and anaesthesia.
The Institute is an almost surreal anomaly – it is supposedly engaged in essential Nazi war work but in reality, is shielding many scientists and others from persecution. Josef, a mathematical prodigy, is set to work irradiating fruit flies in the genetic research division. The institute becomes a substitute family as his Jewish family members one by one are taken away. Eventually, he too is forced into a labour camp, but survives to return to the Institute, only to have to contend with the coming of the Red Army who dismantle the equipment and spirit away the remaining scientists to work in Russia.
Although this is a tale full of anguish, hunger, fear and anger, I thought there were hints of black comedy too: Josef’s obsession with making female conquests, one chemistry division’s focus on converting vast quantities of industrial alcohol to vodka, the limitless supply of certain foods (polenta - feed for the fruit flies, the result of a gross ordering error - and research rabbits, baked in the autoclave).
Initially that didn’t seem to sit right with the underlying horror, but it made a lot more sense framed as biography, when I found out that it had been inspired by Elly Welt’s husband’s experience during the war.
I can’t say if the events 22 years later were similarly based in reality, where Josef (like Welt’s husband) is now an anaesthesiologist. The Berlin years are sandwiched between three short sections following one day in 1967, where Josef realizes he has been in a depression since the end of the war. He moves through a crisis, contemplating suicide and talking to an old physician friend, before deciding to contact a rabbi to say Kaddish for all his family and friends who disappeared. Whether that did resolve his anguish is left open at the end.
But this part is over-detailed (a complete description of a surgical operation including all the drugs administered) and increasingly chaotic: an encounter with an anti-war protest, an aborted visit to a bookshop, a spell in a bar and a romp in bed with a nurse from his hospital all occur in the afternoon before he calls the rabbi. It simply lacks the coherence - and punch - of the earlier years.
One other thing, Welt’s depiction of women - primarily described by their attractiveness or lack of it - seems quite dated. I guess if this were her husband talking about his memory of the forties and sixties that would be understandable; not so much in a work of fiction, even for 1987 when she wrote it.
So, this could have been a 4-star memoir or something, but the later episode really pulled it down. Though I did learn a lot about fruit fly research and anaesthesia.
August 2, 2019
Berlin Wild is a wonderfully written book about a half Jewish, half German man who was put to work in a mysterious scientific institute at the age of sixteen. It has the perfect amount of tragedy, drama, sensuality, and comedy to express the experiences of the character Josef Bernhardt throughout his stunning life.
June 19, 2018
This is my second time reading Berlin Wild, so obviously I liked it enough to reread. I am just a fan of books set in Berlin. Maybe because that's where I was born.
September 2, 2023
An interesting and unique look at the experience of the author’s Jewish husband in Germany during the war. This was a new view of the ways in which some Jews were hidden. Amazing tail.
February 15, 2021
Aside from all the battles fought and won or lost, World War II had lasting impacts on those who participated, either as combatants or as civilians. Even those who did not participate in actual fighting suffered from severe post-traumatic stress, survivor's remorse, and feelings of guilt. Josef Bernhardt is a brilliant young man. His father is a gentile attorney and his mother a Jewish physician. Because of his scientific and mathematical skills, he finds work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. Since he is 50 percent Jewish, he is not safe from Nazi persecution. He is protected for most of the last days of the war by the scientists at the Institute and manages to remain relatively safe until "liberated" by the Russian Army.
The story follows Josef through the war and its aftermath. Later in life, as a practicing physician in the US, he struggles with depression as he tries to accept his Jewish heritage and for not coming to the aid of a number of family members who were eventually murdered by the Nazis.
The story follows Josef through the war and its aftermath. Later in life, as a practicing physician in the US, he struggles with depression as he tries to accept his Jewish heritage and for not coming to the aid of a number of family members who were eventually murdered by the Nazis.
May 23, 2011
Utterly believable characters coping somehow with the madness of the 3rd Reich in a weirdly believable sanctuary in Berlin. The book alternates between that time for the 16-year-old Jewish protagonist and his crisis two decades later when he at last forgives himself for surviving. The pain is vivid, the comedy, too. I want to read it again, immediately.
March 3, 2014
Fruitflies
June 28, 2022
Inspired by true events, Welt describes the life of Josef Bernhardt, a young boy in Berlin, the son of a Christian father and Jewish mother. A brilliant mathematician, Josef's schooling is cut short due to the Nuremberg Laws and he is placed into the Wilhelm Institute of Berlin, where he is treated as a fledging scientist and allowed to continue his education among a mixed group of scientists the Nazis allowed to work and live. But others were not so fortunate and in modern times, Dr. Josef Bernhard, an anesthesiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Iowa, begins to suffer from PTSD and is forced to face the past.
Read
July 20, 2022as another poster said - this heartfelt story about a physician wracked by survivor guilt, most of it takes place in Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the last two years of WW2. 16-year-old Josef Bernhardt is sent there for his safety, as he is half-Jewish.
it is not your usual how did a jewish child survive those years. It is odd, funny, terrifying and most enjoyable. Maybe not the best characterizations (especially of women). But well worth a read. I may read it again.
And it is based on a true story
it is not your usual how did a jewish child survive those years. It is odd, funny, terrifying and most enjoyable. Maybe not the best characterizations (especially of women). But well worth a read. I may read it again.
And it is based on a true story
March 29, 2021
I actually found this very interesting and am curious about the story in more detail given in the book; especially as this was based on a true story, more details for those of us curious minds, would have been fascinating. A story about the Holocaust, and Jews surviving in the heart of the third reich, are truly a story in and of itself. I also found the ending very disappointing. Clearly the protagonist suffered from serious survivor guilt, this too was avoided or dealt into any detail.
December 15, 2025
The story of a young man trying to grow up in in an awful time. It's hilarious in the midst of heartbreak and vice versa. BTW, this story was much more entertaining before I read up and found out what the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was up to. It's better to be as ignorant as the protagonist claims to be, and just be carried along by the bizarre story.
June 7, 2022
There was such an institution, don’t know if the Vodka was flowing quite as freely but a very interesting but different read. One wanted to know what would happen, so one is left a bit hanging but in todays world well things have not changed so much it seems.
March 14, 2021
Interesting story - disappointing ending.
May 9, 2021
Loved it
Interesting , humorous , and also very touching
lots to think about
Interesting , humorous , and also very touching
lots to think about
December 31, 2021
Did not finish
August 24, 2023
Brutal memoir of mathematician Josef Bernhardt working at Kaiser Wilhelmina Institute in Berlin. Josef suffered from the loss of his beloved family and friends during WW2.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews