Book description
Eric Lamet was only seven years old when the Nazis invaded Vienna--and
changed his life and the lives of all European Jews forever. Five days
after Hitler marches, Eric Lamet and his parents flee for their lives.
His father goes back to his native Poland--and never comes back. His
mother hides out in Italy, on the run from place to place, taking her
son deeper and deeper into the mountains to avoid capture.
In this remarkable feat of memory and imagination, Lamet recreates
the Italy he knew from the perspective of the scared and lonely child
he once was. We not only see the hardships and terrors faced by
foreign Jews in Fascist Italy, but also the friends Eric makes and his
mother's valiant efforts to make a home for him.
In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a
dark time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit.
Very few Holocaust memoirs address the plight of Jews sent into
internal exile in Mussolini's Italy. Lamet offers a rare and
historically important portrait, one you will not soon forget.
