Review of It Happened in Italy

I have not read many books about the holocaust, but I did take a class in College and learned a great deal about it. When I seen this book It Happened in Italy, I was curious.

This is a book about a lady Elizabeth Bettina and how she discovered that her childhood village had a little known secret. She found out that in Campagna the residents risked their lives and defied the Nazi's to help their Jewish neighbors. She made it her quest to try and find some of the survivors from the Italian interment camps so they could tell their stories. What you find out about the Italian interment camps was that they were not treated like the Jews in German internment camps. Before German Nazi's decided to get the Jews from Italy they were treated rather well. They looked to be well fed and had regular nicely made clothing, just the opposite of how it was in places like Auschwitz or Dachau.

Though a lot of the stories read about the same it was very interesting to learn about. If someone would have told me about Italy and the holocaust I would not have believed them because it doesn't sound like anything I had ever read or heard of before about what happened to the Jews.

The Italian Jews even had a person who was called "The Italian Schindler" a man who gave up his life to save Jews. His name was Giovanni Palatucci and he saved thousands of Jews in Italy by helping forge documents so they could leave. Once the war began and Germans found out that Italy joined the Allies, the Nazi's came looking there for Jews. It was then that they found out what Palatucci was doing and therefore sent him to Dachau where he was killed like many Jews before him had been killed.

What Happened in Italy was very much a heartwarming story about humans helping humans when they could have turned their backs on the Jews, but instead risked everything to save them. I do believe it could have been written better, but it was interesting none the less.