Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism

By: Alexander Stille

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Synopsis: Extrapolated from the book's introduction: "The first section of the book tells the story of the Ovazzas of Turin, a fascist Jewish family... The second section is a counterpoint to the first, relating the story of an antifascist Jewish family in the same city... While these first two narratives take place within the highly assimilated, cosmopolitan atmosphere typical of Jewish life in the larger cities of northern Italy, the next one (the third section), of the Di Veroli family, describes a radically different but equally characteristic world: the Rome ghetto... The fourth section of the book, set in Genoa, describes the extraordinary cooperation between the Jewish community and the local Catholic Church in hiding and saving Jews... The Schonheits-the subject of the fifth and final section ... they were arrested not by Germans but by Italian neofascists, who played an important role in the Italian phase of the Holocaust..."