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War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944
Iris Origo
#UE6832
Paperback, 239 pages; 2010 (1947)
$14.95
January 30th, 1943--The first refugee children have arrived. They were due yesterday evening at seven--after a twelve hours' journey from Genoa--but it was not until nine p.m. that at last the car drew up, and seven very small, sleepy bundles were lifted out.…We carry them down into the play-room of the nursery-school (where the stove is burning, and supper waiting) and they stand blinking in the bright light, like small bewildered owls. White, pasty faces--several with boils and sores--and thin little sticks of arms and legs.
With this simply elegant diary entry, Iris Origo--an Anglo-American woman married to an Italian and living on their large farm in Tuscany--begins her two-year chronicle of the daily happenings in her rural community during World War II. The events are documented matter-offactly, but the intense drama and remarkable displays of courage and compassion are undeniable. Origo's riveting account of sheltering fugitives (both soldiers and civilians), improvising and hiding supplies, and weathering the destruction and sorrow of warfare testifies to the remarkably triumphant nature of the human heart.
(CH)
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