This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Piera Sonnino (Author), Ann Goldstein (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006

Five years after her return home from Auschwitz, Piera Sonnino found the courage to tell the story of the extermination of her parents, three brothers, and two sisters by the Nazis. Discovered one year ago in Italy and never before published in English, this poignant and extraordinarily well-written account is strikingly accurate in bringing to life the methodical and relentless erosion of the freedoms and human dignity of the Italian Jews, from Mussolini's racial laws of 1938 to the institutionalized horror of Auschwitz. Through Sonnino's words, memory has the power to disarm these unspeakable evils.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Published after Sonnino's death in 1999, this haunting memoir recounts the story of her Italian Jewish family, including her parents and five siblings, who perished in the Holocaust. In spare, beautifully translated language, Sonnino details her life in Genoa prior to 1938, when the racial laws went into effect. Within a lower-middle-class environment, her parents and siblings were "lambs, good people, ready to suffer many wrongs rather than be stained by a single one, eager to make as little noise as possible and occupy the least space possible on this earth." In 1943, when the Germans arrived in Italy, the Sonninos hid in mountain villages, but were betrayed, arrested and, in 1944, sent to Auschwitz. The author's account of the last night they spent together is eloquent. Her parents and two of her brothers were killed in the gas chambers. Sonnino watched her sister, Bice, succumb to dysentery at the Braunschweig concentration camp after the two were incarcerated at the Bergen-Belsen camp. After the war the author spent five years in rehabilitation centers and sanitariums and returned to Genoa in 1950. She married, raised two children and penned this searing testimony for her family in 1960. B&w photos. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

The author and her Genoese Jewish family--her parents, three brothers, and two sisters--were arrested in Italy by Fascist police in October 1944 and deported to Auschwitz. She was the only survivor, and she was later sent to Bergen-Belsen and Braunschweig. Sonnino returned to Genoa in 1950 at the age of 28. In 1960, she wrote down the events of her life during the war, "solely for the benefit of her daughters," and she died in 1999. The book chronicles how the family left their home in 1943 and spent a year in hiding and flight that ended after they were denounced and captured. David Denby postulates in the book's foreword that Sonnino survived because she was strong and also lucky because she didn't become ill. He also theorizes that the family's determination to stick together may have hastened their destruction. This stunning memoir is one of the most amazing stories to come to light. It is a valuable find and a crucial document from the history of the Holocaust. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403975086
• ISBN-13: 978-1403975089
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,813,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spare and unsparing, November 9, 2006

By 

M. Danziger "CSP85" (Massachussets) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz (Hardcover)

This account of an Italian family's brutal experience at the hands of the Nazis is riveting. Ms. Sonnino writes in a spare, unflinching style. What isn't spared is the horror that she and her beloved family endured. From safe house to safe house, to their discovery, to their horrific journey to the the death camps in Poland, to their hearbreaking seperation, to the inhuman treatment they suffered with such dignity, it is a tale I will never forget. This book will take its place as required reading for anyone who wants to understand the depths to which humans can fall, and the effort that one woman made to rise above it somehow.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Book You Will Not Forget, June 28, 2010

By 

Ron Portnoy (Arizona) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz (Paperback)

Piera Sonnino was the only surviving member of a family of eight Jews from Genoa who were turned over to the Nazis in the fall of 1944. Within a few weeks, the mother, father and three brothers were killed. Soon after, her two sisters also perished. The author survived and wrote her memoir 40 years later never intending it to be published. But shortly after her death, Sonnino's daughter submitted the short manuscript to an Italian weekly which published it in its entirety in a special issue. And I couldn't be more thankful. What a wonderful book written by a very gifted writer. The original manuscript was only 60 typewritten pages and yet, within those few pages, the reader truly gets to know the personalities, strengths, and frailties of all the family members. This is a great read and the foreword, translator's note, epilogue and afterword, all written by different authors, adds greatly to the story. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful book, October 16, 2009

By 

G. Holden "Luv2Reed" (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz (Paperback)

sad and unfortunally true story of the near anihilation of an Italian Jewish family by the Nazis