What a con­trast was the Jews’ chilly treat­ment in Switzer­land and Nor­way to the warm, help­ful atti­tude of ordi­nary Ital­ians toward Jew­ish refugees in Italy, where when the police were told to plan a raid they would warn the Jews the pre­vi­ous day. In It Hap­pened In Italy, we get anoth­er facet of this great sto­ry in a decep­tive­ly chat­ty book that dis­guis­es the strength and resolve of its author, Eliz­a­beth Bet­ti­na. A woman of great intel­li­gence, inge­nu­ity, and deter­mi­na­tion, she reached the high­est lev­els of Ital­ian gov­ern­ment and the Papa­cy to bring the sto­ry of her family’s vil­lage of Cam­pagna, Italy dur­ing the Holo­caust to the pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly how Gio­van­ni Palatuc­ci, an Ital­ian police offi­cial work­ing under Mus­soli­ni, saved thou­sands of peo­ple from being deport­ed to Nazi death camps, result­ing in the sac­ri­fice of his own life by the Nazis. Even though he had a visa for Switzer­land, he gave it to his sweet­heart, a Jew­ish woman, so that she might escape. This is the sto­ry of how Italy — which demand­ed no visas — and the Ital­ian peo­ple were help­ful to the Jews so that not only did 85% of them sur­vive, but the intern­ment camps served good food, no one wore uni­forms and the Jews were allowed the free­dom of the towns dur­ing the day. Bet­ti­na tries to explain these details by point­ing out that Ital­ians char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly don’t lis­ten to rules, that they do what they think is best. There are many heart­felt sto­ries here and the author is look­ing for more; she can be con­tact­ed at www​.eliz​a​beth​bet​ti​na​.com.