From Stay Alive! Berlin 1939-1945, by Ian Buruma (Penguin, 2026), pp. 102-103, 108:
Berliners, like all denizens of big cities, often pride themselves on their urban wit, the humor of which is not always apparent to people from the outside—which is part of the fun, of course. The new reality of nightly bombing raids inspired some examples of the famous Berlin wit. A printed invitation did the rounds to a basement party put on by a Berlin cabaret, promising an all-night program with a musical overture of sirens, a fireworks display, and a lecture by Professor Fragmentation-Bomb entitled “All Good Things Come from Above.”
A contemporary joke: An airplane carrying Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels crashes. All three are killed. Who is saved? Answer: The German people. When Berliners said goodbye, they often wished each other a “bo-lo-na,” short for Bombenlose Nacht (night without bombs).
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A new verb entered the already rich lexicon of violent Nazi vocabulary: Coventrisieren, to “Coventry” a city. On November 14, the Luftwaffe bashed the city of Coventry with more than five hundred tons of incendiary and explosive bombs, as well as air mines that exploded upon impact. The cathedral went up in flames, more than five hundred people died, and two thirds of the city’s buildings were badly damaged.
Newspaper headlines in the rest of November gave Berliners a taste of what it meant to be Coventried: “Eyewitness Account of the Devastation of London: London Is on Its Way to Being Totally Destroyed” (Völkischer Beobachter, November 20). “Birmingham in Flames: The Blaze Can Be Seen from as Far as the English Channel” (VB, November 21). “Coventry, a Dead City” (VB, November 21).
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Since the bunkers that went up in 1940 by no means offered enough protection against bombs for most Berliners, it was decided that children should be evacuated to the countryside. The word “evacuated” was never mentioned in public, however, since that would suggest a sense of panic. The official term was Kinderlandverschickung, KLV, or “children’s relocation.” In the bracing rural air of Brandenburg, Silesia, or Bavaria, the children would be taught discipline, obedience, and loyalty to the Volksgemeinschaft, by senior members of the Hitler Youth. The state would pay for the KLV of poorer children. Wealthier families would have to pay for it themselves. Off they went, waving swastika flags from packed railway carriages, the youngest ones with tags around their necks bearing their names. Parents were not allowed to visit their children in their new billets, for that would interfere with their education.
Far Outliers 