Shifra Hochberg has a Ph.D. in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture from New York Uni­ver­si­ty, teach­es at Ariel Uni­ver­si­ty in Israel, and has pub­lished a cou­ple dozen aca­d­e­m­ic essays. In the course of writ­ing The Lost Cat­a­comb, she trav­eled to Italy more than a dozen times, mak­ing on-site vis­its to all loca­tions in the nov­el and meet­ing with fam­i­lies of Ital­ian Holo­caust survivors.