Frog Hotel

The Frog That Couldn’t Jump

Kim Ju-Song | Dial | 14th November 2023

Memoir. A Japanese-born writer of Korean descent describes working as an office assistant at the Writers’ Union in North Korea, where his responsibilities included overseeing what was known as the "100-copy collection", a small library of foreign books locked in a safe and reserved for the use of Union members only. "Any mismanagement of the 100-copy collection would be prosecuted as a political crime, since it would in effect be distributing capitalist reactionary materials to the public" (4,030 words)

Hitler The Hotel Guest

Adam Bisno | 1584 | 17th November 2023

In February 1931, two years before he became chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler moved his Berlin headquarters to a suite in the Hotel Kaiserhof on Wilhelmplatz, overlooking the Reich Chancellery. The Kaiserhof started to swarm with Nazis. Jewish custom evaporated. The directors of the hotel, most of whom were Jewish, found themselves in an unenviable dilemma. Should they kick Hitler out and face the consequences? Or should they let him stay, and face the consequences? (750 words)