Letter: Berlin's loss

Sir: In her article on Berlin "as seen through the eyes of Christopher Isherwood sixty years ago" ("In search of Sally Bowles", 17 October), Jacqueline Karp Gendre opines: "... replace Isherwood's Jews with present- day Turks and you have a very credible remake of his Berlin." Nonsense.

Those who lived here for generations and enriched every aspect of artistic, cultural and commercial life, who fought for and were decorated by a land they believed to be their own cannot be replaced by anybody - even in the wildest journalistic fantasy.

What is worse, this kind of froth trivialises the betrayal of those who were hunted down merely on the basis of their faith by bigots with none. One has now only to walk the empty streets of Berlin where Jewish culture had thrived to sense the loss. Nothing has replaced it. Nothing can. It was unique.

JOHN WOOSNAM

Berlin