This Has Happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz

Plot

Sonnino's story of her Genoese Jewish family's deportation to Auschwitz was published by her daughters in 2002, in response to an Italian weekly's call for readers' memories. Born in 1922, Sonnino describes the family's slow decline from middle class respectability to "dignified poverty" (a situation that the 1938 racial laws made irreparable) and the proud isolation that forged a tight family unit, thereby making individual escapes inconceivable. The uniquely devastating quality of this book comes from the Old World refinement embodied by Sonnino's parents and the systematic degradations their children see them endure. Sonnino also displays a propensity to dwell on human kindness. Although her family is betrayed by a fellow Italian, she takes care to mention all who offer assistance along the way, even the elderly German woman who gives hot tea to her fainting sister.