Trümmerfrau

Recent BBC audio, part of the BBC's "Witness" series: BBC World Service - Witness, Berlin's Rubble Women

"At the end of WW2 much of Germany's capital had been destroyed by bombing and artillery. Almost half of all houses and flats had been damaged and a million Berliners were homeless. Caroline Wyatt has been speaking to Helga Cent-Velden, one of the women tasked with helping clear the rubble to make the city habitable again."

There's also a similar example here: BBC Radio 4 - Germany: Memories of a Nation, Out of the Rubble

Out of the Rubble

Neil MacGregor talks to a Trümmerfrau, a woman who cleared rubble from the streets of Berlin in 1945, and focuses on a sculpture by Max Lachnit, a portrait of a Trümmerfrau made from hundreds of pieces of rubble.

Neil also examines the role the launch of the Deutsch Mark played in the re-building of Germany.

Producer Paul Kobrak.

 

They do say if you want a job doing give it to a woman...
Trümmerfrauen Oiram - YouTube you may want to turn the sound down/off