It Happened in Italy

by Elizabeth Bettina

 IMAGINE ELIZABETH
BETTINA’S SURPRISE when she discovered that her grandmother’s village had a
secret: over a half century ago, many of Campagna’s residents defied the Nazis
and risked their lives to shelter and save hundreds
of Jews during the Holocaust. What followed her discovery became an adventure
as she uncovered fascinating untold stories of Jews in Italy during World War
II and the many Italians who risked everything to save them.

Endorsements:

 “Finally, somebody
made known the courage and the empathy of the majority of the Italian people toward
us Jews at a time of great danger.” —Nino Asocoli

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, Italy, World War II, Italian Literature, Biography

398 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 21, 2009

Reviews

[Violet wells]

Shame this book isn’t what it claims to be. I thought I was going to read a book about how foreign Jews fared in Italy during WW2. Instead it’s a book almost entirely about the author and her endeavours to put this book together. It’s almost comical in its relentless narcissisms. In 340 pages perhaps twenty are devoted to the stories of the survivors she meets. A less scholarly book would be hard to imagine. Bettina wants to portray Italian concentration camps as more like holiday camps than the nightmare camps in other European countries and the Italian people as a whole unified in helping the Jews. I’ve seen a couple of documentaries on Italian TV about Jewish experiences in Italy during the war and their stories are very different. While it’s true lots of Italians were very courageous in offering assistance to Jewish refugees let’s not forget, as Bettina seems to want, that official Italian policy was reprehensible and in 1938 all Italian Jews were stripped of fundamental human rights and made to feel like pariahs. It’s hard to blame Bettina herself for the naivety and sweeping half-truths of this book because her enthusiasm for her quest seems genuine but I’m not sure I understand why anyone would publish such a thin, poorly conceived cottage industry work on such a sensitive subject.

[Kristy Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a bad book, but the author is not a great author and the book is not quite what I expected. It is written like a blog, short chapters focusing on one event, thought, or person. And it is more about the authors journey of discovery, and work on finding these stories than it is about the actual stories of survival. Not to say that her story isn't interesting, as I identified with her quite a bit, but it wasn't why I bought the book. We only get the barest of details about the survivors lives, how they got to Italy, how they survived the war, and what happened to them after. That is the part I wanted to hear about most. I will say that Ms. Bettina includes her sources, and lots of photos, which made the book very interesting.
This book is worth your time,and it is a quick read. But if you are looking for a story about survival during the war I recommend Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell. Yes, it is historical fiction, but she does meticulous research and framed her story around true stories of survival.

[Allie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Typed into the Star of David, set on the bottom left hand corner of this book is the tagline that goes something like this; the true story of the untold horrors the Italian Jews suffered during the Holocaust. Based on the first couple of pages of this book and this tagline, I thought for sure this book would be a great story about how people overcame the horrors of the Holocaust and survived, with help from their Italian neighbors. I can say after finishing that I was extremely disappointed in this book. There are a few stories of holocaust survivors, but mostly, this is a story about Elizabeth Bettina's quest for self fulfillment and recognition. At least, that's what I got from the story. She barely focused on these "untold stories" and instead spent most of the book talking about how she got to meet the Pope and go to Italy an unprecedented amount of time. I thought after the first few chapters she would go back into the stories of the survivors and drop off talking about herself, but that never happened. In short, this book was not at all what it claimed to be, and not in anyway helpful. As far as I'm concerned there are still untold stories of the Holocaust in Italy, because the stories were never told in the first place. Huge disappointment.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably more of a rant than a review but I was just so disappointed with the book this was compared to the book I thought it was going to be. Maybe I shouldn't judge a book just on my expectations, but I also believe the title was misleading so the publishers or author created those same expectations.

What kind of book should one expect with that title? I was expecting a oral history, or a non-fiction historical account of the people that survived the Holocaust while living in Italy, the Italians that helped them, and some chapters explaining the political situation in Italy and why it may have been different. Unfortunately, there was very little of that. Instead, I got to read about Elizabeth Bettina and how she discovered that there was once a concentration camp near the village that her grandmother was from, that a larger percentage of Italy's Jewish population survived the Holocaust than those of other European countries (with the exception of Denmark), and how it inspired her to do research and make people aware of this story. This book is less her sharing the story of the Holocaust and more her sharing her journey of discovery. And while that journey very well may have its place, such as in an introduction and/or afterword, or the first and last chapters of the book I described, that's really not what I thought this book would be.

I agree that this would be a great story to tell, but she is not the one to tell it. The first hundred pages are basically all about her (and I honestly don't get the impression that she is purposely self-absorbed but it doesn't negate the fact that the book is more about her than the "untold story" she claims to tell, or at least her part in it). There are two or three chapters that specifically focus on survivor stories but even these are told more conversationally with her quoting them rather than letting her subjects speak for themselves and tell of their experiences. I absolutely believe that Bettina did a lot of work compiling their stories and tracking down the survivors, but I wish she would have shared the results in this book, not the work. She mentions that she is working on a documentary and I wonder if that documentary would show more of this story.

Bettina also describes the various trips back to Italy that she organized for the survivors and how she arranged meetings with the Vatican, and eventually even the Pope. Again, I think that would have been a great epilogue or afterword to the Holocaust story but instead it was the center of the story. Maybe if I was Catholic or gave a shit about religion, that would have been fascinating. As it was, I didn't really care. Considering that the subtitle is "how people of Italy defied the horrors of the Holocaust" I would much rather be hearing from elderly Italians or Jews.

The other thing is that the book lacks nuisance as a result of her focus on the modern day. She paints a very rosy picture of how things were in Italy, focusing on the fact that 80% of the Jewish population survived. That still leaves 20% dead, and while that is a much better number than from a country like Poland, it doesn't mean that she can argue that Italians were just such good Catholic people. Last I checked the Poles were Catholic, too. There are a variety of factors that caused that number, and I can only guess at the intricacies involved, including the different relationships Germany had with Poland and Italy, those countries' histories, and pre-existing anti-semitic attitudes, among many other things. Before this, the only thing I'd read that focused on Italy and the Holocaust was Mary Doria Russell's amazing novel A Thread of Grace, and not all Italians came off as great humanitarians. Some were, some weren't. I'm not denying that there is a difference, and there should definitely more exploration of the topic but I'm sure it is more complicated than Bettina's "Italians are awesome" analysis in this book. Plus, being more humane than the Nazis still doesn't mean that policies weren't racist.

My one other complaint about this book, besides her focus on the wrong part of the story, is her writing style. It felt like every sentence should have ended with an exclamation point because she! was! so! excited! "Oh my god, you were at the same camp as this other survivor I've been talking to?! How crazy and awesome and amazing!" It's called statistics, woman! There are only so many camps and so many survivors.

Having said all that, I think the stories alluded to would be fascinating, and if this documentary is ever released, I hope it would focus on the interviews, because in that case the documentary could be very good. Bettina also talks about filming these interviews, so at least this part of history is now preserved for posterity so I will applaud Bettina for that. I just wish the history had made up more of this book.

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I think it lives up to the title. By chance the author hears a story about an internee in Italy during WWII. He thanks the Italian people for helping him to survive the war when so many others perished. She then, again, seemingly by chance, meets a number of other people who echo the first guy's story. It turns out that the first gentleman had been in a camp right near where her family was from in Italy. So she really felt a connection with him.

It was a very uplifting book. In some case, the internees had apartments, hung out at the local pool, played team sports, went on picnics (a wife who spent the war in Auschwitz told her husband, who had been interned in Italy, that he'd had a picnic didn't know how right she war until she saw the photo of them on a picnic), etc. They had to report to the carabiniere once a day and couldn't leave town without permission.

I had previously read War in Val d'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 and I had wondered if the treatment of the Jews and Allied soldiers was because she was British (married to an Italian) or if it was common. Apparently it was common. Obviously not everyone in Italy didn't necessarily treat them well or else there wouldn't have been any deportations. But the point is made here that many treat them humanely just because they were good Christians. Some of these people were staying in convents and were able to put together a synagogue to worship in their own way. If the people were humane in the first place, they treated others humanely.

[Michael Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most uplifting and inspiring books I have read. In a continent cast into darkness by war and genocide in the 1940s, Italy and most Italians stood as a beacon of light and good. Despite being a nominal ally of Nazi Germany and having discriminatory racial laws, the Italians never murdered (officially or not) the Jews who went to Italy for refuge. The Italian government did intern the Jews in camps, but those camps were way different from the Nazi camps.

It was almost like the Jews in Italian camps were on vacation. They had decent quarters, they had parties, they had weddings, they had visitors, they can leave for a time, and they were able to practice their religion.

In short, they were treated as human beings. The Italians did not see them as otherwise. The government, the Church, and ordinary Italians saved thousands of lives.

I have always been an admirer of Italy, and this piece of history made me more so. (I also love Italian food.) And I am also proud that the Philippines made its own decent contribution to helping the persecuted Jews in the 1930s, when President Manuel Quezon and the Commonwealth government at the time offered visas for Jews who wanted to flee Germany. Around 1,200 Jews availed of the offer and were saved.

Italy and the Philippines did not sit idly by and watch or did not care. They cared and did something. A big thing.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic of this book is so enthralling and the few stories as told by the survivors of the detention camps in Italy are fascinating - but the author, sad to say, is just a terrible writer. I kept looking through the credits of the book to be sure that there really was an editor involved, because I was certain that no one could have read this book and approved the author's writing - yes, it was that bad. This is such an important story which needs to be told and I do have to give credit to the author for arranging the visits and interviews, but she shares so little of their stories and is very repetitive. I'm enthralled by the compassion of the Italian people during the Nazi years and will always remember that nugget of information because of this book, but as much as I wish I could, I just can't recommend this book to others. (The 2 stars is only for the very important but very scant little known history that I found in the book, otherwise I would have to give it zero stars.)

[Reading Rediscovered · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be more of a documentary style about the author rather than telling the stories of the survivors of the Holocaust in Italy. She told more about her adventures to find people and meeting with Italian officials than the actual stories of the survivors.
I was amazed to find out that there had been concentration camps in Italy, but that they were very different from the typical concentration camps associated with Germany in World War II. I was amazed that the people were treated like humans instead of garbage.
I did enjoy reading about the survivors but wasn't sold on it the whole time due to the author centered nature most of the time.
It does make me more curious about Italian Jews during World War II, so now I'll be on the lookout for other information or books about it!

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not sure that the negative reviewers of this book read the same book as I did. Most of them complained that the horrors of the Holocaust in Italy were not described in detail. That is not the purpose of the book. It is, instead, a book about the good people of Italy helping strangers survive the horrors of the Holocaust. I wish I could give it more than five stars.
If you want to read about the worst of the Holocaust, numerous books go into the trials and tribulations of German and other Jews of Europe. The Holocaust in Europe during World War II was beyond horrific. The “Final Solution” was the goal of the National Socialist Party (of Germany) headed by Adolph Hitler. The end result was the elimination of Jews and other minorities deemed subhuman by the Hitler-led Party.
ELIZABETH BETTINA in this book, IT HAPPENED IN ITALY (published in early 2009) brings to light another more positive aspect of the story. Hitler’s longtime ally in Italy was Benito Mussolini. Some say he was Adolph’s puppet in that many of his policies followed the lead of Herr Hitler. However, the population of Italy was different from that of Germany.
One of the most influential Italian officials in leading the Jews to safety was Giovanni Palatucci. He was able to hide public records identifying the Jewish citizens and he set up benevolent intern camps. He has been proposed for sainthood. Ironically, he died in a German concentration camp during the war.
Ms. Bettina is a resident of New York. Her family had moved there from Italy. Originally, they were from Campagna, southeast of Naples/Sorrento. Campagna is a city that was the site of a “camp” for Jews unlike any of the concentration camps in German controlled states. Although Ms. Bettina had visited relatives in Campagna, she was not aware of this history. While attending a lecture at Queens College in New York, she first meets Walter Wolff, a German Jew who had been in the camp in Campagna. Mr. Wolff’s friend Vincent Marmorale, a retired high school history teacher/Long Island University professor was also present. This chance meeting leads Ms. Bettina into a most amazing voyage of discovery.
Wolff, like many of the others interviewed for this book, had fled Germany shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Most countries in Europe required visas to enter. Those precious documents were hard to come by, if at all. Italy, on the other hand, did not require visas to enter before hostilities broke out. After being released from Dachau thanks to his mother’s efforts, Walter was one of the doubly lucky ones. He was told he had leave Germany quickly which was not a problem because he had been accepted at a college in Chicago. However, the United States rejected his application for a visa. Therefore, Walter and some of his family migrated to Italy in the late 1930s. He was arrested again in 1940.
At first, Walter was sent to the largest Italian internment camp in Ferramonti, near the “toe” of the Italian boot. There he found his brother Bruno and his mother. Under the Italian policy called cinternato libero, he could choose his location for further internment. He chose Casale Monferrato (near Milan). There he was able to get fake documents with the help of a local priest.
Mr. Wolff ended up in a Campagna convent (now a museum) with about 275 other Jewish refugees. The “inmates” were free to wander the town. They could worship in their makeshift synagogue, get married, have children, play soccer (football) and lead a more or less normal life. In return, they had to report to the local police station every morning. Most amazing, in my opinion, is that the Italian government paid them a stipend for incidental expenses!
On her journey, Ms. Bettina meets several other survivors from Italian camps. They include Horst Stein, Herta Pollak, Max Kempin, Gerda Mammon, Edith Birns (widow of Alfred), Giorgina de Leon Vital, Ursula Korn Selig, Eva Deutsch Costabel and Marina Lowi Zinn. She tells their stories as well. With Vincent’s help, many were interviewed for a documentary in order to preserve their stories forever. Thanks to Thomas Nelson, the book’s publisher, you can also read these stories. Elizabeth was able to arrange trips to Italy for many of the survivors. On one trip, they even had a personal interview with Pope Benedict XVI.
Ms. Bettina is a decent writer. At times, I had a hard time reading the words because of the tears in my eyes. This is must reading if you are of Italian or Jewish ancestry. Or even if you are not! The photos in the book are priceless as well. EXTREMELY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
GO! BUY! READ! NOW!

[Maria Lischak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an eye opener!!! I read a lot about the Holocaust and have never read the kindness of the Italian people to the Jewish people. Elizabeth Bettina brings to light the humanitarian treatment, the RIGHT choices against evil the Italians chose during such a horrific time when so many lives were lost, so many people chose evil over goodness. This book makes me prouder of my Italian heritage.
Well done, Elizabeth Bettina. Thank you from the bottom of my heart 💜

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting and well researched report about the Jews who survived the Holocaust while living in Italy and being aided by Italians and Catholics.

[rjp316 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the concept of this book. It was fascinating to learn that Italy actually had concentration/internment camps during WWII. These camps were thousands of times better than the concentration camps in Germany and elsewhere where millions of Jews died. In Italy – the prisoners were allowed to walk the streets, play soccer, get married, kept their own closes and even pray and attend service at the synagogue. This was about those prisoners and those courageous Italians who risked everything to save their fellow humans from certain death by not sending them north to German camps.

The story is true and develops after Bettina became fascinated with the Jewish population in Italy during WWII, after seeing a photo with a rabbi, priest, and police officers together. She learns that just yards from her grandparents house in Italy there was once one of these concentration camps that held hundreds of Jews. Bettina finds survivors from these camps and tells their stories and the stores of the Italian people who helped save them.

That said this story was not written very well. It was hugely repetitive – the “milk mother” story must have been told 5 times in this book as was the dreadful phase “Miss American sash”. The storyline skips around way too much and everything is a huge surprise. The book seemed to be all about her and how she is connecting these people – not about their lives. Plus one thing I really did not like is that this appears to be all about how wonderful all Italians were during WWII - she fails to mention that this was just a very tiny group of people. In fact 15% of Italian Jews were murdered during WWII. Plus there was huge anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church during this time, which she hugely praises during the book and her numerous trips to the Vatican. The Jews in these camps were not treated “ok” they still were not allowed to leave their town, hold jobs, and had to report to the police every day – this sounds like a restriction of their basic freedoms so they were being treated still like non-citizens and were in fact in prisons.

Not sure if I would recommend this book to friends. It was interesting to read this positive side to WWII and that not all concentration camps were horrible as we have learned from history but we need to realize this was only a very very small percentage of Jewish history and 5.3 MILLION Jews did die during the war, so these survivors from Italy were certainly in the minority.

[Josh Dellorto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bettina discovers that her grandmothers small village of campaña in Italy was a town that kept Jews safe during World War 2. She has been visiting there since childhood and now discovers this great story. She soon learns that most cities and towns in Italy helped Jewish people instead of turning them over to the nazis. During this story she meets survivors of is terrible event that teach others how Italy was here safe haven.

I would no recommend this book if you are looking for excitement. This book moves very slow and has lots of boring chapters. Overall this book is very informational and if you are interested in learning about World War 2 in Italy for the Jewish community than this is the book for you.

[Deigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is simply an awful book. I could not plow through any more of it than the first 100 pages. It is a very important story of love and courage in Italy during WWII but the author in her attempt to be cute and folksy ends up being trite and self serving and thus trivializes an important story. The book is filled with nonsense put in to make her look cute and the real information is scattered in bits and pieces. The story is greatand heroic but there really is not enough of it to make a book - more like a story in The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. This book is enough to make me want to get a Kindle so that there is no possibility that any trees were wasted printing this crap.

[Diane]

Loved this book. So glad that something good came out of a terrible time. It was amazing how the Jews were treated in Italy compared to the rest of Europe.
Makes me even prouder of my Italian heritage.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories Of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust is written by Elizabeth Bettina. The title of this book caught my attention because my great-grandparents came fro Italy, luckily before the war. From reading, I knew there were camps in Italy for Jews and that the Italians didn’t let the Nazis take many of their Jews. However, I have never read anything about the camps in Italy or how the Jews were treated. This book helps to clear that up. It is difficult to see the difference between Italian and Nazi camps. The Jews in Italy were treated relatively well and with respect most of the time. The mountainous areas in Italy were perfect for Jews to live in the towns in the high mountains and if the Germans did come to that area, it was easy to hide them. The Catholic church in Italy also did a great deal of hiding or helping to hide Jews even under the very eyes of the Germans. Of course, there were those who collaborated with the Germans and turned Jews in; but it seems the majority of Italians helped Jews or ignored what their neighbors were doing.
Elizabeth Moscovich Birns is a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who lost her entire family, except her brother, in Auschwitz. She was chosen to live and endured the Hell of Auschwitz until she was transferred to the alternate Hell of Ravensbruck. Being eighteen definitely was in her favor to survive as was her determination not to give up and the fact that she was in the camps for only about a year before the war ended. . After surviving, she ended up marrying an Italian Jewish survivor, Alfred (Fred) Birns. After hearing his story of the Italian camps, which she had a hard time believing, she always teased her husband of his luxury camp although since he and his family fled to Italy and were put in the camps immediately, he was in the camp for six years.
She found a photograph of an Italian camp and showed it to a Dachau liberator friend who had never talked about what he saw in the liberation of Dachau. He could not believe what he was seeing. He hadn’t known about the Italian camps, although he fought in Italy as well as Germany. The difference was incredible and unbelievable. Instead of taking everything, including hope from the victims in the German camps, the Italian camps actually instilled hope in their victims. He and others who talked to her about the differences told her that this story needed to be told because of the humanity it showed. In fact, in European countries, 80% of the Jews died during the war; but in Italy, 80% or more survived.
She sets out to learn more about the Italian camps and to try to find survivors willing to talk to her. She found many survivors and some of the connections between the survivors was surprising. She took many trips to Italy and the camps or the areas and took survivors with her. On every trip, something surprising happened or was learned. One person or story led to another and another as she uncovered more and more information. She brought a camp guard and a survivor who had known him in the camp. Instead of animosity, they hugged each other and began to tell stories of the camp. It was crazy. She took several survivors to the Vatican where they met with the Pope and a Cardinal who would later be Pope. Jews visiting the Pope!
The book has more surprising things that happen to Elizabeth and her search for the camps, survivors, and Italians who helped Jews. The book is simply amazing.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the book that I thought it was going to be. The author, Elizabeth, lives in New York but has a lot of family in Campagna, Italy. She goes there every year but it is not until she is in adulthood that she discovers that a Concentration Camp was in Campagna before and during World War II. Elizabeth goes on a quest to discover the people who lived in the camp and those who worked in the camp.

I thought it would be more historical, but it turned out to be more of a memoir. It was Elizabeth chronicling the journey that she had in meeting these survivors and connecting them to each other and also taking many of them back to Italy to re-visit the sites.

It was interesting to discover that the camps in Italy were very loose and the Italian people were very kind to the Jewish prisoners, even warning them when the Germans were coming to take them to their executions. It was amazing to discover the kindness of the soldiers and Italian people. I wish that there could have been more about the back stories.

So it was an okay book. I liked it more at the end of the story then the beginning, once I had gotten used to the cadence and the fact that it wasn't the book that I thought it was going to be.

[Penny Cipolone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although not particularly well-written, this book opens up a fascinating view of how many Italian citizens took care of and hid Jews during WWII. I never knew there were internment camps in Italy. Well there were, and the towns in which they were located took good care of the occupants. This a a missing story from history and one that more people should know about.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another one for the half star system, in my books -- 1.5 would do it, because it rests marginally above "i didn't like it" and marginally beneath "it was OK". Oh dear.

This book is representative of a huge marketing miss -- ironic only because the author works in the marketing industry, according to the dust jacket. The jacket promises, "untold stories of how the people of Italy defied the horrors of the Holocaust", but there aren't very many stories told.

Oh, wait ... perhaps the joke is on me: the fact that she promises "untold stories" and that those stories remain "untold" is indeed accurate. Hmmm... Let me ponder the marketing genius of that little trope.

There is too much of Bettina in here, and not enough about the Jews, the Italians, or the Holocaust. The author indulges in too much "gee-whiz-golly-look-at-me-and-what-I-did" than zeroing in on the stories, and making them the focus of her book. There is a self-indulgent element, it strikes me, that doesn't sit well with the ponderous nature of her topic. During the first hundred pages or so, I was indulgent enough to think, "She's a sweet person who is overwhelmed by her topic, and her discovery, and is finding it difficult to separate that discovery from the importance of the work." After a couple hundred more pages, I came to believe that there is nobody in the world that is quite that disingenuous. Especially someone who works in Marketing.

It is sad to have a book promise so much, and deliver so little, especially when the topic is so important -- seminal, I would dare say in the history of the Holocaust, and of Italy.

Still, I commend her for bringing this topic to light. At the very least, she has provided names, places and dates from which many researchers can begin their own quest. Hopefully, one day, a more cohesive narrative will emerge on how much the Italians actually contributed to helping the Jews in World War II.

[Kristi Thielen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A folksy, sunny account of Ms. Bettina's efforts to take Jews who survived the Holocaust in Italy, back to the sites where they lived, including some very unusual "concentration camps" where Jews were not only NOT harmed - but lived peaceably and even practiced their faith. Bettina's emotions are heartfelt and the story - one of the few bright spots of the era - is well worth telling.

My only discomfort was with Bettina's views of the church. Clearly a devout Roman Catholic and a near-groupie of all things Vatican (there is MUCH coverage of several trips to see cardinals and the Pope) she chalks up the decency of the Italian people to their religion far more than I believe she should. Instead, this decency seems much more a function of the innate character and temperment of the Italian people, as a culture.

[Carly · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing that saves this book from a one-star rating is the novelty of the subject. Learning about the Jews in Italy brought to attention a part of history that is not well known. However, the number of pages that is about that part if history probably take up one tenth of the book, with the rest being all about the author. This book felt very selfish, given that it Aa supposed to be about others.

[Pam]

It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories Of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust is written by Elizabeth Bettina. The title of this book caught my attention because my great-grandparents came fro Italy, luckily before the war. From reading, I knew there were camps in Italy for Jews and that the Italians didn’t let the Nazis take many of their Jews. However, I have never read anything about the camps in Italy or how the Jews were treated. This book helps to clear that up. It is difficult to see the difference between Italian and Nazi camps. The Jews in Italy were treated relatively well and with respect most of the time. The mountainous areas in Italy were perfect for Jews to live in the towns in the high mountains and if the Germans did come to that area, it was easy to hide them. The Catholic church in Italy also did a great deal of hiding or helping to hide Jews even under the very eyes of the Germans. Of course, there were those who collaborated with the Germans and turned Jews in; but it seems the majority of Italians helped Jews or ignored what their neighbors were doing.
Elizabeth Moscovich Birns is a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who lost her entire family, except her brother, in Auschwitz. She was chosen to live and endured the Hell of Auschwitz until she was transferred to the alternate Hell of Ravensbruck. Being eighteen definitely was in her favor to survive as was her determination not to give up and the fact that she was in the camps for only about a year before the war ended. . After surviving, she ended up marrying an Italian Jewish survivor, Alfred (Fred) Birns. After hearing his story of the Italian camps, which she had a hard time believing, she always teased her husband of his luxury camp although since he and his family fled to Italy and were put in the camps immediately, he was in the camp for six years.
She found a photograph of an Italian camp and showed it to a Dachau liberator friend who had never talked about what he saw in the liberation of Dachau. He could not believe what he was seeing. He hadn’t known about the Italian camps, although he fought in Italy as well as Germany. The difference was incredible and unbelievable. Instead of taking everything, including hope from the victims in the German camps, the Italian camps actually instilled hope in their victims. He and others who talked to her about the differences told her that this story needed to be told because of the humanity it showed. In fact, in European countries, 80% of the Jews died during the war; but in Italy, 80% or more survived.
She sets out to learn more about the Italian camps and to try to find survivors willing to talk to her. She found many survivors and some of the connections between the survivors was surprising. She took many trips to Italy and the camps or the areas and took survivors with her. On every trip, something surprising happened or was learned. One person or story led to another and another as she uncovered more and more information. She brought a camp guard and a survivor who had known him in the camp. Instead of animosity, they hugged each other and began to tell stories of the camp. It was crazy. She took several survivors to the Vatican where they met with the Pope and a Cardinal who would later be Pope. Jews visiting the Pope!
The book has more surprising things that happen to Elizabeth and her search for the camps, survivors, and Italians who helped Jews. The book is simply amazing.

[Jen | A Tipsy Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bettina uncovers these fascinating, little-known stories about how Jewish refugees in WWII found safety in, of all places, Italy. As someone with Italian roots, reading about tiny villages and unexpected kindness during such a dark time was genuinely interesting — it felt like peeling back a curtain on a piece of history most people never talk about.

The catch? The writing itself. Let’s just say it was… how do I put this nicely… as flat as day-old focaccia. 🥴 The stories had heart and real substance, but the way they were told felt kind of blah, like you were stuck at a dinner table listening to your aunt read her vacation journal out loud. Important? Yes. Riveting prose? Not so much.

Synopsis-wise, the book takes you through Bettina’s discovery of how Italians — many of them regular townsfolk and priests — hid, sheltered, and supported Jews during WWII, often risking their lives to do so. It weaves in survivor interviews, photographs, and Bettina’s own journey to connect with these stories. The overall takeaway is powerful: compassion can show up in the unlikeliest places, and Italy’s role in sheltering Jews deserves way more recognition than it usually gets.

Review-wise? I’d say: interesting material, delivered in about twice as many pages as it needed. Like, you could cut this thing in half and still get all the powerful moments and save yourself a few cups of espresso trying to keep your eyes open.

So final verdict: I’m glad I read it, I learned a lot, and as an Italian I felt a little spark of pride in seeing these stories spotlighted. But if you’re looking for snappy, engaging prose… ehhh, maybe don’t come here expecting fireworks. Think of it more like a long, slow Sunday meal — you’ll get something nourishing, even if the seasoning could’ve been bolder.

[Gloria Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

As so many other reviewers have said, this book could have used some tight editing. That said, it was a very interesting and illuminating story of how Jewish people were treated during the war by the Italians. They were “interned” in a friendly way without the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. Women and children mostly went about their ordinary lives, and for the most part, men did too, though they were somewhat more constrained in where they would go.

It was more a story about the author and her activities around finding former Jewish people who had been in Italy during the Second World War. She was amazed to learn there had been an internment came in her Italian grandmother's home town and the Italian people had protected most of the Jews from being found by the Germans. It is an uplifting story about good people who risked their own lives to protect people they didn't even know.

That said, the book was too long and could have been edited to tighten up the story without losing much information.

Still, I recommend this book and look forward to learning more about how so many Jewish people survived the war in Italy when far fewer survived in the rest of Europe.

[Chrissy Shea Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read many WWII books recently, multiple about Auschwitz. This book discusses the concentration camps in Italy - something not many even realize existed - and the author’s journey to learn about them. The difference between these camps and German camps is amazing and how Italian-born Jews were not interned initially and people did what was right by ignoring orders and “losing” paperwork.

These people were cared for, even when Mussolini was technically an ally of Hitler’s, and were treated with dignity. Not something most people think about when they think of concentration camps.

Overall, it’s an okay book (I really like all of the pictures and documents). It’s full of information about a part of the Holocaust I didn’t know about but it reads like it was the author’s daily journal. One and a half page chapters, very jovial in her commentary, and a little too light hearted given the topic.

[Will Staton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is correct that the stories within “need to be told,” but her telling of them is disjointed, poorly-written, and centers on the author. I was expecting serious nonfiction complete with research, but instead got only small anecdotes, most of which were about the author. The stories about the Jews who survived the Holocaust in Italy are generally cut short and more or less amount to “we only survived bc we were in Italy,” with few other details about the how and why that survival was made possible.

Although the tales are heroic, and the tone of the book uplifting and positive, this is not a serious read, and isn’t worth it for serious historians. It’s likely also not worth it for the more casual reader either as - again - the book reads more like a memoir of the author’s “calling” (her words). Pick up something different.

[Cheryl Kloda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Bettina's book, "It Happened In Italy", shows that regular everyday people can make a difference. The author discovers that in her Grandmother's town in Campagna Italy many Jewish lives were saved during World War Two. Most of the town's people believed that people should not be persecuted because of their religion. At risk to themselves, many of these ordinary citizens hid many of their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis. Even in the Italian concentration camps of Campagna, the Jewish population was treated humanely. Many of the survivors said their lives were spared because of living in Italy at this time. As a reader, I felt that this was a story that needed to be told. I also had to wonder why in other European Countries Anti-Semitism was more rampant. Was it because of a cruel culture or not knowing Jewish people as fellow citizens? Another good book to read on this subject is," Beneath A Scarlet Sky".

[Greg Schloesser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories of Jewish individuals and families who survived the Holocaust due to the protection rendered by Italian families and officials. While some of the Italian Jewish population were deported to concentration camps, where most perished, many (the book argues most) were kept safe by Italian families and authorities in safe camps inside Italy. These camps allowed a remarkable amount of freedom and even luxuries.

The book concentrates on the author's search for survivors that leads her all around the world and garners meetings with the Pope and high Vatican officials. It is a collection of personal stories, both hers and the survivors.

The story is fascinating and I applaud the author's efforts to bring it to the attention of the world.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is unlike any other book that I have read about the Holocaust. I was unaware of the people in the southern Italian countryside of Calabria who risked their lives to save, to hide, to help to escape, and/or to improve the quality of the lives of Jewish people who were being sought and persecuted by Hitler's regime. The heroism of the Italians during one of the darkest periods of modern history is documented and described by the author with compassion and detailed explanations. When asked by the author why the Italians took such risks, the answer was simply, "It was the right thing to do."

[francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jewish survival in Italy during the Holocaust

This is a compelling story and it merits being told. The number of Foreign Jews living in Italy in 1938 is quite significant. Many Jews in Europe saw Nazism as an existential threat and sought refuge in Italy. This preventive action proved to be a wise decision, as many Italians risked their lives in order to save from persecution. It is not widely known that thousands if Jews were interned in concentration camps, throughout Italy. The author has done a commendable job in documenting this ordeal.