Status Updates From War in Val d'Orcia: An Ital...

When letters begin again, how many other such pieces of news shall we all receive? Which of our close friends and relations are already dead, or will die before we meet them again? And, even among those who survive, what barriers of constraint and unfamiliarity will have arisen in these years—not only of physical separation, but of experience unshared, of differing feelings and opinions? What ties will survive?

What took place at the meeting between [the King and Mussolini], who were alone, is not known. What is certain is, that when Mussolini came out and looked around for his car, the officer on guard at the gate requested him instead to enter a Red Cross closed ambulance, in which he found his doctor waiting. And so he drove quietly away—from Villa Savoia and from power.

Children such as these have had to leave their own homes and families, and are arriving—bewildered but hopeful—among strangers. There is something terribly moving in this exodus—something, too, so deeply wrong in a world where such a thing is not only possible but necessary, that it is difficult not to feel personally responsible.