Forty Autumns
A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
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By:
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Nina Willner
About this listen
In this illuminating and deeply moving memoir, a former American military intelligence officer goes beyond traditional Cold War espionage tales to tell the true story of her family - of five women separated by the Iron Curtain for more than 40 years and their miraculous reunion after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Forty Autumns makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two.
At 20, Hanna escaped from East to West Germany. But the price of freedom - leaving behind her parents, eight siblings, and family home - was heartbreaking. Uprooted, Hanna eventually moved to America, where she settled down with her husband and had children of her own.
Growing up near Washington, DC, Hanna's daughter, Nina Willner, became the first female army intelligence officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Though only a few miles separated American Nina and her German relatives - grandmother Oma; aunt Heidi; and cousin Cordula, a member of the East German Olympic training team - a bitter political war kept them apart.
In Forty Autumns, Nina recounts her family's story - five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk.
A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love - of five women whose spirits could not be broken and who fought to preserve what matters most: family.
©2016 Nina Willner (P)2016 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Marie G. on 04-12-23
By: Zhuqing Li
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The Home That Was Our Country
- By: Alia Malek
- Narrated by: Alia Malek
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
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Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
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Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
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Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
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Behind Enemy Lines
- The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany
- By: Marthe Cohn, Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Marthe Cohn was a young Jewish woman living just across the German border in France when Hitler rose to power. Her family sheltered Jews fleeing the Nazis, including Jewish children sent away by their terrified parents. But soon her homeland was also under Nazi rule. As the Nazi occupation escalated, Marthe's sister was arrested and sent to Auschwitz and the rest of her family was forced to flee to the south of France. Always a fighter, Marthe joined the French Army and became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army.
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Amazing story of a fighter and survivor
- By Magalie Busch on 05-06-19
By: Marthe Cohn, and others
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The Saboteur
- The Aristocrat Who Became France's Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando
- By: Paul Kix
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II - Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur - and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive.
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Brave outstanding young man
- By paula wright on 06-02-20
By: Paul Kix
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Children of the Night
- The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania
- By: Paul Kenyon
- Narrated by: Paul Kenyon
- Length: 19 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The country that gave us Vlad Dracula, and whose citizens consider themselves descendants of ancient Rome, has traditionally preferred the status of enigmatic outsider. But this beautiful and unexplored land has experienced some of the most disastrous leaderships of the last century. After a relatively benign period led by a dutiful king and his vivacious, British-born queen, the country oscillated wildly.
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A haunting look at Romanian history
- By Steve Adams on 07-19-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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No Good Men Among the Living
- America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes
- By: Anand Gopal
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent, a U.S.-backed warlord who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power, and a village housewife trapped between the two sides who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.
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Outstanding book, remarkable narrator
- By captainramius on 04-05-19
By: Anand Gopal
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Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
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I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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The Aquariums of Pyongyang
- By: Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
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Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
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A Kim Jong-Il Production
- The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power
- By: Paul Fischer
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.
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Absolutely terrifying
- By Anonymous on 02-19-15
By: Paul Fischer
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Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
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The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
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On Hitler's Mountain
- Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood
- By: Irmgard A. Hunt
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden - just steps from Adolf Hitler's alpine retreat - Irmgard Hunt had a seemingly happy, simple childhood. In her powerful, illuminating, and sometimes frightening memoir, Hunt recounts a youth lived under an evil but persuasive leader. As she grew older, the harsh reality of war - and a few brave adults who opposed the Nazi regime - aroused in her skepticism of National Socialist ideology and the Nazi propaganda she was taught to believe in.
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A rare and very much appreciated perspective.
- By tabounds on 12-28-17
By: Irmgard A. Hunt
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Nora Crowell wants more than her sister’s life as a wife and mother. As WWI rages across the Atlantic, she becomes a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corps. But trouble is looming and it won’t be long before the truth comes to light. Having lost her beloved husband in the trenches and with no one else to turn to, Charlotte Campbell now lives with his haughty relations who treat her like the help. It is baby Aileen, the joy and light of her life, who spurs her to dream of a better life. When tragedy strikes in Halifax Harbour, nothing for these two women will ever be the same again.
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Tender and True
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In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure. Twenty years later, as the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army.
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More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as bestselling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point.
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After the violence of Kristallnacht (1938), European Jews, now desperate to emigrate, found the consular doors of the world closed to them. Only one port required no entry visa: Shanghai, a self-governing Western trading enclave in what was technically Chinese territory, a political anomaly that became an escape hatch—if you were lucky enough to afford a ticket on one of the great Lloyd liners sailing to the East and safety.
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Newlywed American missionary Darlene Deibler Rose survived four years in a notorious Japanese prison camp set deep in the jungles of New Guinea. Thinking she was never to see her husband again, Darlene Rose was forced to sign a false confession and face the executioner's sword, only to be miraculously spared.
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Nora Crowell wants more than her sister’s life as a wife and mother. As WWI rages across the Atlantic, she becomes a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corps. But trouble is looming and it won’t be long before the truth comes to light. Having lost her beloved husband in the trenches and with no one else to turn to, Charlotte Campbell now lives with his haughty relations who treat her like the help. It is baby Aileen, the joy and light of her life, who spurs her to dream of a better life. When tragedy strikes in Halifax Harbour, nothing for these two women will ever be the same again.
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What listeners say about Forty Autumns
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Daryl
- 01-13-17
Terrific Book!
I was still a child when the Berlin wall fell. In my innocence, I thought it was sad, that a country ceased to be on the map.
Since then, I've been interested in eastern Europe.
This book describes both the personal and political backdrop to what happened in East Germany, what the reality of life was like, the risk it was to leave...
This book is accessible, readable, and compelling. But there's something disconcerting about the author referring to her grandmother, someone she never met, as her "Oma", and her mother by her first name. And there's something disjointed in the telling in places, where family member disappear and reappear and you almost need a scorecard to keep up with who they are.
Cassandra Campbell is a wonderful narrator, though I'm not certain about her German and Russian pronunciations. Overall, both author and narrator did a wonderful job of telling the reality of life under east German rule.
Well worth your time and credit.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lisa
- 11-10-16
Wonderful Audible BOOK
This book is beautifully written and the narrator is easy to listen to.
You could tell that the author had a great deal of knowledge with the topic and had me looking forward to my afternoon walk with my dog so I could get back into the story.
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2 people found this helpful
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- JD Madsen
- 03-06-22
Couldn’t stop listening
I loved this book! From the very first chapter inwas hooked and didn’t want to stop listening. The performance was wonderful, and the story so compelling, heartbreaking, and brave a full of heart. Highly recommend!
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- G. Thorsen
- 01-04-20
A Cold War family story worth hearing
Well-written story about a family split between the west and East Germany.
Narrator was good but German pronunciation quite lacking.
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- Belinda
- 11-20-22
Insightful
As I was living my own life of freedom in the USA, I should have paid attention to the plight of others in East Germany and other Eastern bloc countries. This book has opened my eyes and heart to what these precious people experienced. It’s a well-written, heart-felt story.
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- Gillian Hargreaves
- 12-01-22
Comprehensive and personal
Lovely and fascinating, often heartbreaking but never morose... how the arc of history affected one large German family.
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- Cat.
- 01-21-23
Outstanding piece of work
Really,really enjoyed this book
As a retired United States, Air Force pilot, who was able to fly missions into Germany, and also into Berlin when the wall was still active, I found this book, extremely informative and interesting. Her description of flying into Berlin through those corridors was exactly as I remembered back in the 70s .
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- Mary McDonnell
- 09-30-23
Post WW2 Story I had never heard!
I loved learning about life in eastern Germany after the war. I didn’t realize how truly difficult the Germans had it under Soviet rule. That this is a true story makes this all the more remarkable!
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- Marcia
- 04-09-17
Insightful, interesting, and well-researched
Excellent, moving portrayal of this gifted and courageous author and her family. I loved it!
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2 people found this helpful
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- sarah lewis
- 01-30-20
Great story and perspective
It was great to see the different sides of living in East Germany. This story allows a glimpse into what it was like for those young and old trying to live their best life among the harsh rules of the government.
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