Books by Susan Zuccotti

What did Pius XII do to aid Jews during World War II? This is an examination of efforts on behalf of Jews in Italy, the country where the pope was in a position to be most helpful. It finds that despite a persistent myth to the contrary, Pius and his assistants at the Vatican did very little.

Eighty-five percent of Italy's Jews survived World War II. Nevertheless, more than six thousand Italian Jews were destroyed in the Holocaust and lives of countless others were marked by terror. This book relates hundreds of stories showing the resourcefulness of Jews, the bravery of those who helped them, and inhumanity and indifference of others.

This book describes the ever-escalating dangers to which Jewish refugees and recent immigrants were subjected in France and Italy as the Holocaust marched forward. Susan Zuccotti uncovers a grueling yet complex history of suffering and resilience through historical documents and personal testimonies from members of nine central and eastern European Jewish families, displaced to France in the opening years of the Second World War. The chronicle of their lives reveals clearly that these Jewish families experienced persecution of far greater intensity than citizen Jews or long-time resident immigrants.The odyssey of the nine families took them from hostile Vichy France to the Alpine village of Saint-Martin-Vsubie and on to Italy, where German soldiers rather than hoped-for Allied troops awaited. Those who crossed over to Italy were either deported to Auschwitz or forced to scatter in desperate flight. Zuccotti brings to light the agonies of the refugees unstable lives, the evolution of French policies toward Jews, the reasons behind the flight from the relative idyll ofSaint-Martin-Vsubie, and the choices that confronted those who arrived in Italy. Powerful archival evidence frames this history, while firsthand reports underscore the human cost of the nightmarish years of persecution.

Susan Zuccotti narrates the life and work of Pere Marie-Benoit, a courageous French Capuchin priest who risked everything to hide Jews in France and Italy during the Holocaust. Who was this extraordinary priest and how did he become adept at hiding Jews, providing them with false papers, and helping them to elude their persecutors? From monasteries first in Marseille and later in Rome, Pere Marie-Benoit worked with Jewish co-conspirators to build remarkably effective Jewish-Christian rescue networks. Acting independently without Vatican support but with help from some priests, nuns, and local citizens, he and his friends persisted in their clandestine work until the Allies liberated Rome. After the conflict, Pere Marie-Benoit maintained his wartime Jewish friendships and devoted the rest of his life to Jewish Christian reconciliation. Papal officials viewed both activities unfavorably until after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), 1962-1965.To tell this remarkable tale, in addition to her research in French and Italian archives, Zuccotti personally interviewed Pere Marie-Benoit, his family, Jewish rescuers with whom he worked, and survivors who owed their lives to his network.