Awards

• Commended for National Jewish Book Award (Biography/Autobiography) 2006

Overview

Ten years after her return home from the lager, Piera Sonnino found the courage and the strength to tell the story of the extermination of her family by the Nazis' the tragedy of deportation, the death of her parents, her three brothers and two sisters in the concentration camps. Extraordinarily written, this account is strikingly accurate in bringing to life the methodical and relentless siege, the erosion of the freedoms and human dignity of the Italian Jews, from Mussolini's racial laws of 1938 to the final catastrophe of Auschwitz. In describing her arrival at the death camps, her writing dwells on the sea of mud, on a 'dimension that is completely contrary to all that which is human, a dimension that has even absorbed its own creators'. But the strength of her testimony rises from the mud, the personal diary becomes a universal voice that gives a name to that which cannot be expressed. Through her words, memory has the power to disarm this unspeakable evil.

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9781403975089

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Reviews

In spare, beautifully translated language, Sonnino details her life in Genoa prior to 1938, when the racial laws went into effect. -- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review <br> A moving account of a family caught up in the Shoah....An important contribution to Holocaust literature...Four illuminating essays bookend this slim memoir. David Denby acknowledges the 'tinge of irritation and guilt' people often feel upon the publication of a Holocaust memoir, then brilliantly demonstrates why this one is necessary. -- Kirkus, Starred Review I have read any number of overwhelming and despairing works about the Holocaust, but I don't think I have ever read anything so simply structured, so clearly composed--so heartfelt a tragedy, especially from the pen of someone who never considered herself a writer--as the one that unfolds in this brief memoir. --Robert Leiter, Jewish Exponent Our world of habit would suggest that little more can be said about the Nazi death camps and the horrors of the Final Solution. But a narrative with the dignity and concise elegant candor of This Has Happened is a pointed reminder that suffering is inescapably individual, unique, and present. Piera Sonnino's account of the terrible end of her family achieves a kind of classic starkness that makes it a living representation of human loss. --W.S. Merwin, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, National Book Award winner for Migration Piera Sonnino wasn't supposed to survive and she didn't expect anyone to read about her family's, her community's and her people's suffering. Aiming only for truth, using only the most beautiful of language, she's created an accidental masterpiece. This Has Happened is a stunning gift by aremarkable woman from an intolerable era. --Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of After, Strange Fire What can I say to make you read this book? That it is imperceptibly moving, encroachingly horrifying, utterly soul-wrenching? But you've heard that before, and won't believe me. Instead I will tell you this: reading this book is not at all like reading a book. Instead, it is like talking with a person, knowing a person, knowing an entire family--and then knowing, not through art but through life, what it means to lose everything, by knowing precisely what 'everything' is. --Dara Horn, award-winning author of In The Image and The World To Come A rare, beautiful and movingly written book. The simplicity and honesty with which Sonnino conveys her family's experiences are gripping and heartbreaking. As a historical document, this book is particularly valuable in view of the fact that there are fewer records of the Holocaust experiences of Italian Jews than of most other European Jews. With the historical significance of this book comes an unobtrusive message of familial love and devotion, a message which will undoubtedly resonate for generations to come. --Nechama Tec, Holocaust Scholar and Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Connecticut in Stamford, and author of the National Jewish Book Award-winning Resiliance and Courage: Women Men and the Holocaust Consice, restrained, and tightly written, a look from the inside of the Holocaust out. --Entertainment Weekly I have read any number of overwhelming and despairing works about the Holocaust, but I don't think I have ever read anything so simply structured, so clearly composed--so heartfelt a tragedy, especially from thepen of someone who never considered herself a writer--as the one that unfolds in this brief memoir. -- Robert Leiter, Jewish Exponent

Runner-up in the 2006 National Jewish Book Award Biography Category 'A painful historical testimony, which achieves a genuine literary dimension in conveying the collapse of the narrator's identity at Auschwitz.' - Carlo Ginzburg, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'Our world of habit would suggest that little more can be said about the Nazi death camps and the horrors of the Final Solution. But a narrative with the dignity and concise elegant candor of This Has Happened is a pointed reminder that suffering is inescapably individual, unique, and present. Piera Sonnino's account of the terrible end of her family achieves a kind of classic starkness that makes it a living representation of human loss.' - W.S. Merwin, Pulitzer Prize winning poet and National Book Award winner 'Piera Sonnino wasn't supposed to survive and she didn't expect anyone to read about her family's, her community's and her people's suffering. Aiming only for truth, using only the most beautiful of language, she has created an accidental masterpiece. This Has Happened is a stunning gift by a remarkable woman from an intolerable era.' - Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of After, Strange Fire and editor of Nothing Makes You Free 'What can I say to make you read this book? That it is imperceptibly moving, encroachingly horrifying, utterly soul-wrenching? But you've heard that before, and won't believe me. Instead I will tell you this: reading this book is not at all like reading a book. Instead, it is like talking with a person, knowing a person, knowing an entire family - and then knowing, not through art but through life, what it means to lose everything, by knowing precisely what 'everything' is.' - Dara Horn, award-winning author of In The Image and The World To Come '[Sonnino] is a true writer ... she refuses to give way to hatred or denunciation. In this reluctance, she is like her great compatriot Primo Levi. Her words, like his, have a force beyond any denunciation.' - David Denby, author of the bestselling memoirs Great Books andAmerican Sucker 'Heartbreaking ... [A] beautifully written memoir.' - Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace 'An important contribution to Holocaust literature.' - Kirkus Reviews 'A painful historical testimony, which achieves a genuine literary dimension in conveying the collapse of the narrator's identity at Auschwitz.' - Carlo Ginzburg, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'Our world of habit would suggest that little more can be said about the Nazi death camps and the horrors of the Final Solution. But a narrative with the dignity and concise elegant candor of This Has Happened is a pointed reminder that suffering is inescapably individual, unique, and present. Piera Sonnino's account of the terrible end of her family achieves a kind of classic starkness that makes it a living representation of human loss.' - W.S. Merwin, Pulitzer Prize winning poet and National Book Award winner 'Piera Sonnino wasn't supposed to survive and she didn't expect anyone to read about her family's, her community's and her people's suffering. Aiming only for truth, using only the most beautiful of language, she has created an accidental masterpiece. This Has Happened is a stunning gift by a remarkable woman from an intolerable era.' - Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of After, Strange Fire and editor of Nothing Makes You Free 'What can I say to make you read this book? That it is imperceptibly moving, encroachingly horrifying, utterly soul-wrenching? But you've heard that before, and won't believe me. Instead I will tell you this: reading this book is not at all like reading a book. Instead, it is like talking with a person, knowing a person, knowing an entire family - and then knowing, not through art but through life, what it means to lose everything, by knowing precisely what 'everything' is.' - Dara Horn, award-winning author of In The Image and The World To Come '[Sonnino] is a true writer ... she refuses to give way to hatred or denunciation. In this reluctance, she is like her great compatriot Primo Levi. Her words, like his, have a force beyond any denunciation.' - David Denby, author of the bestselling memoirs Great Books and American Sucker 'Heartbreaking ... [A] beautifully written memoir.' - Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace 'A rare, beautiful and movingly written book. The simplicity and honesty with which Sonnino conveys her family's experiences are gripping and heartbreaking. As a historical document, this book is particularly valuable in view of the fact that there are fewer records of the Holocaust experience of Italian Jews than of most other European Jews. With the historical significance of this book comes an unobtrusive message of familial love and devotion, a message which will undoubtedly resonate for generations to come.' - Nechama Tec, Holocaust Scholar and Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of Connecticut in Stamford, and author of the National Jewish Book Award-Winning Resilience and Courage: Women, Men and the Holocaust. In spare, beautifully translated language, Sonnino details her life in Genoa prior to 1938, when the racial laws went into effect. - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review A moving account of a family caught up in the Shoah...An important contribution to Holocaust literature...Four illuminating essays bookend this slim memoir. David Denby acknowledges the 'tinge of irritation and guilt... people often feel upon the publication of a Holocaust memoir, then brilliantly demonstrates why this one is necessary. - Kirkus, Starred Review Concise, restrained, and tightly written, a look from the inside of the Holocaust out. - Entertainment Weekly '...a valuable addition to both Jewish and Italian historical and cultural studies.' - Elisabetta Nelsen, Shofar

A moving account of a family caught up in the Shoah.In 1960, Italian Holocaust survivor Sonnino wrote a spare account of her experiences during World War II. Intended for her children, the manuscript stayed in her possession in a red leather binder; only in 2002, three years after her death, did her daughters permit its publication in an Italian newspaper. The author was one of six children in a Jewish family living in Genoa when the Germans swept through Italy in 1943 and 1944. She tells of the Sonninos' attempt to hide and their eventual deportation to Auschwitz, where her parents and five siblings all died. The book's most chilling passage comes early on. German-Jewish refugees flooded into Genoa in 1934, causing considerable economic hardship for those, like the author's family, who tried to help them. No more came after 1935, and the Italians assumed that things in Germany had improved. The death struggle of the German Jews had begun, Sonnino writes, and we were unaware of it. Four illuminating essays bookend this slim memoir. David Denby acknowledges the tinge of irritation and guilt people often feel upon the publication of a Holocaust memoir, then brilliantly demonstrates why this one is necessary. He comments helpfully on Sonnino's prose, noting that her writing becomes more terse and urgent as her narrative marches toward the camps. His arresting foreword is followed by a helpful sketch of the historical background from New Yorker editor Goldstein, who also crafted this wonderful English translation. An epilogue by Italian journalist Giacomo Papi describes how the manuscript came to light, and novelist Maria Doria Russell's provocative afterword explains why Italian Jews fared relatively better than their brethren in the rest of Europe.An important contribution to Holocaust literature. (Kirkus Reviews)

&#8220;In spare, beautifully translated language, Sonnino details her life in Genoa prior to 1938, when the racial laws went into effect.&#8221;-- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review<br>&nbsp;<br>&#8220;A moving account of a family caught up in the Shoah&#8230;.An important contribution to Holocaust literature...Four illuminating essays bookend this slim memoir. David Denby acknowledges the &#8216;tinge of irritation and guilt&#8217; people often feel upon the publication of a Holocaust memoir, then brilliantly demonstrates why this one is necessary.&#8221;-- Kirkus, Starred Review&nbsp; I have read any number of overwhelming and despairing works about the Holocaust, but I don't think I have ever read anything so simply structured, so clearly composed--so heartfelt a tragedy, especially from the pen of someone who never considered herself a writer--as the one that unfolds in this brief memoir. --Robert Leiter, Jewish Exponent &nbsp; Our world of habit would suggest that little more ca

Author Information

PIERA SONNINO was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. She was later transferred to Bergen Belsen and Braunschweig. The sole survivor of a family of eight, she returned to Italy in 1950. She died in 1999. ANN GOLDSTEIN is an editor at the New Yorker. She has translated works by Roberto Calasso, Alessandro Baricco, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Aldo Buzzi. The recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award, she is the editor of the forthcoming collected works of Primo Levi. She lives in New York, USA.

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