The Italians and the Holocaust; Persecution, Rescue, and Survival

New York: Basic Books, Inc, 1987. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xviii, 334 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Corners of several pages slightly creased. Susan Sessions Zuccotti (born November 14, 1940) is an American historian, specializing in studies of the Holocaust. She holds a Ph.D. in Modern European History from Columbia University. She has won a National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies, and the Premio Acqui Storia - Primo Lavoro for Italians and the Holocaust (1987). She also received a National Jewish Book Award for Jewish-Christian Relations, and the Sybil Halpern Milton Memorial Prize of the German Studies Association in 2002 for Under His Very Windows (2000). . Zuccotti has taught courses on Holocaust history at Barnard College and Trinity College. Derived from a Kirkus review: Her unflinching honesty allows us to discover why, in Fascist Italy, 85 percent of Italian Jews survived the Holocaust. The author weaves a tale of survival without forgetting those who did not survive. There are some tentative answers to the riddle of Jewish survival, but each answer alone seems insufficient. The nature of Italian Jewry was more important, however. It was small and had adequate financial resources. It was fully assimilated. Italian non-Jews had rational reasons to help, too. The small number of Jews made such help a practical endeavor. Such sensible reasons, however, fail to get at the unselfish, often heroic efforts by people who didn't have to help. While Italy's record was an admixture, the overwhelming evidence is that Italians were uncommonly humane. Without exaggerating their effects, the author justifies her focus on the Holocaust in one country by marking off some of the unique national characteristics that defined their humanitarian reaction to the horror.