It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust

by Elizabeth Bettina

Book Overview

IMAGINE ELIZABETHBETTINA'S SURPRISE when she discovered that her grandmother's village had asecret: over a half century ago, many of Campagna's residents defied the Nazisand risked their lives to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595551026
• ISBN13: 9781595551023
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers
• Length: 380 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book. I am looking forward to suggesting this book for the Book Club.

The story of what happened to some Jewish people is explained in this book. I was amazed that none of these stories were never told. Everyone should read this book. It is excellent.

A Memory of Holocaust Survivors that Reads Like a Detective Story

Before reading this book, I had only heard the dreadful tales of Holocaust survivors from the German camps. Thanks to Elizabeth Bettina we now know that the Italian camps were humane and comfortable. It was heart warming to hear stories of Italians helping Jews survive the dreadful atrocities committed during World War II. I couldn't stop reading. A book of story after story about the heroic actions of the Italians in the hill towns could quickly become boring unless the reader had a personal interest. However, this book reads like a detective story. Starting with the discovery of a surprising picture showing Jews picnicking in an Italian concentration camp, we follow Elizabeth Bettina and Vince Marmorale on a surprising journey as they trace the survivors from the camp in Campagna, home of Elizabeth's relatives. As the tales unfold and intertwine, the reader is pulled into the story wondering what will happen next. How many more people will find they're tied to each other through the camps in the Italy? The book is filled with photos and documents validating the story. These in themselves are precious. I felt amazement along with the author, as person after person produced pictures and official papers documenting their story. It's still hard to believe how different the treatment of Jews in Italy was from that of Jews in Germany. It was a pleasure to read this wonderful story.

Touching

This is an amazing story about holocaust survivors in Italy that was so rivetting I could not put it down. I'd never really thought about how Jews in Italy were treated and this book showed that they were treated completely differently than their Jewish counterparts elsewhere in Europe, and this was largely due to the people of Italy's determination and compassion. It was touching and made interesting reading.

Not Sure what to Expect, Pleasantly Surprised!!

Honestly, I had high hopes for this book; I enjoy reading about World War II & the Holocaust specifically, but nonfiction titles can sometimes lack real "readability" and be full of too many facts and details to be interesting. I found this book, It Happened in Italy, to be a wonderful mixture of both. I really liked the way the story chronicles the way the author came upon her information and sources. It really demonstrates what "small world" we live in, yet also the extensiveness of the impact of the Holocaust. One statement that stood out to me in the book was that by saving 5,000 people, one man not only saved that many, but now 25-30,000 people, as those original Holocause survivors now have children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren. What a great example of the difference one person can make. Like I said, I found that this book read more like fiction than non-fiction, very captivating. The multiple appendixes at the back were interesting, and I loved the photos throughout. I would highly recommend it if you are interested in history at all.

Looking at Italy

Bettina, Elizabeth. "It Happened in Italy" Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defend the Holocaust", Thomas Nelson, 2009. Looking at Italy Amos Lassen Elizabeth Bettina discovered that her grandparents who lived in the little village of Campagna, Italy helped save Jews during the Holocaust. This fact took the author on a journey. The small town of Campagna was home to an interment camp for Jews during the Holocaust and we learn that it was not the only location in Italy that did so. Bettina began to look for survivors and heard their stories that she relays to us. There have been varying opinions about the stance of the Catholic church and the extermination of the Jews and we learn here that the church helped Jews by giving them shelter. I was not sure how to approach this book as it came to me just as Holocaust Memorial Day was approaching and I remember hearing about the Pope's position which was not positive. As I read I learned there were Italians who defied Nazism and not only sheltered but save the lives of Jews. As Bettina learned, there were places all over Italy where Jews were being protected and this puts a different face on the Italians. Bettina writes straight about what went on and her writing makes it easy to understand what was going on. The book is a postscript to the history of that horrible period and it causes me to believe as Anne Frank said-- there is good on people. Here are untold stories of how some Italians went against the horrors of the Holocaust and we get a look at goodness during a very evil time. Between 75 and 80% of Italian Jews survived the Holocaust as compared to 80% of the Jews of Germany who were killed. In Italy, orders were deliberately ignored and when the Jews were not sheltered, they were helped to leave Europe. Stories like Bettina's are becoming less and less available as survivors are dying so we are very lucky to have this. Many have a hard time understanding how the Holocaust could have happened and sometimes we tend to link reality with the unbelievable and unimaginable. Bettina herself faced this and she was determined to learn more. She met with survivors so that we can have their stories and we are so lucky that she did.

A noteworthy addition to Holocaust literature

Having taught Holocaust history at the secondary school level in the past, I have always had an interest in the subject and read numerous books on the Holocaust. My knowledge of Italian rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust has been limited to accounts mentioned in books detailing the rescue of Jews by Aryans or Righteous Gentiles, or from watching movies on the subject, such as "The Scarlet and the Black" [1983,starring Gregory Peck as a Vatican priest rescuing Jews] and an old fact-based mini-series titled "The Assisi Underground"[1984,starring Ben Cross and James Mason]. So when I saw the title of this book, my interest was immediately piqued. The author, Elizabeth Bettina takes readers to her childhood village of Campagna in Italy and weaves a riveting account of how these humble villagers went against Nazi edicts [of not protecting Jews] by providing shelter for hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust, an act of defiance that is all the more remarkable given the dire consequences. The penalty of aiding Jews was almost certain death, and if not death, then probably arrest and deportation to the infamous Nazi concentration camps scattered throughout Europe during WW II. The author also chronicles other stories of Jews helped by Gentiles throughout Italy. The manner in which this book is written is not in a stilted or scholarly fashion, but in a simple, easy to read style which does not detract from the people and events described. In fact, it achieves the purpose of bringing the reader closer to the amazing people of Italy who helped the persecuted Jews. The tone is at times humorous and also casual, and enables the reader to connect on an emotional level with the events and personalities being described. The first person accounts of survivors serve to make these events all the more real to readers. One such account is the story of 86-year-old Horst Stein who survived the Holocaust in Italy, through his incarceration at a camp in the small Italian town of Civitella del Tronto, where Stein claims he and other internees were well-treated, having contact with locals etc. This is a far cry from the horrors of the Nazi concentration and death camps located in Poland and Germany where Jewish prisoners not only suffered unimaginable suffering but many, especially women, children and the elderly were 'processed' for death in the gas chambers upon their arrival. Interspersed amongst these accounts are archival photographs, documents such as marriage certificates, birth certificates, baptismal certificates, maps etc. There are appendices at the end of the book listing among others, the names of all the internees in Campagna, the list of survivors interviewed for the book, historical documents, a time line of the book, number of Jews killed in each European country [20% of Jews in Italy perished in the Holocaust], letters from the survivors interviewed to the author, and a bibliography of suggested reading materials. In conclusion, I found "It Happe