Recommended Reading

The author explores the factors that enabled eighty-five percent of Italy's tiny and highly assimilated Jewish minority to survive the Holocaust, which began in earnest with the German occupation in late 1943.

The book addresses the fate of French Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators. The author chronicles the clandestine networks of Jewish rescue organizations, the heroic efforts of armed Jewish resistance groups, and the assistance provided by non-Jews. Zuccotti also charts the treachery of Vichy politicians and of countless French collaborators who joined fascist leagues to hunt down members of the resistance and Jews.

Zuccotti describes what the Vatican did — or did not do — to help Jews in Italy in World War II. The author demonstrates that little help of any kind came from Popes Pius XI and XII or their senior officials. Zuccotti's research ranges wide, from the anti-Jewish tone of Jesuit publications in the years leading up to World War II to contemporary interviews with Holocaust survivors.