Customer Reviews

This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz

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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.

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.

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

Every story that is told about someone who witnessed the war during the years of WW2 is incredible. Its sometimes hard to read about these events over and over, but the enormity of it all is almost beyond belief. This is a fast read and the foreword and afterword are important additions to the story as written.