Review of It Happened in Italy by Elizabeth Bettina

My Summary and Review:

It Happened in Italy is the story of Elizabeth Bettina's research on Holocaust survivors who were in concentration camps in Italy. Theres type of camps were very different from the the "death" camps the most of us have heard of. The Italian camps were more detainment camps where the Jewish people were allowed to carron their normal lives with the confines of the camp. In here research she comes in contact with families that were saved under Giovanni Palatucci who was murder/marytred for what he did to save them. He is was refered to as the "Italian Schindler" because he saved so many Jews for certain death in the camps such as Auschwitz. Each of the storytellers have their own stories and some of them intertwine.

My thoughts on the book were of sadness and yet I found their stories inspirational. I learned that some Italians saves some of the Jews for the the Nazi while others did not. The journey the author took in this book took her back to the homeland of her relatives who traveled to America several years before. Along with her on this journey were some of the survivors of the Holocaust who were in Italy at the time. The stories were so vivid that you felt like you were their with them along with the pictures that helped to enhance the visual.

The appendices provide gave you insight into what life was like and their or list for see if your relatives were saved under Palatucci.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants like to see stories of inspiration and hope despite being persecuted by the Nazis. It has a lot of positive stories. Most of us when reading material about the Holocaust her stories of sadness but this is not the case with this book.