Vittoria: A Historical Drama Based on A True Story

Born into a wealthy Jewish family in northern Italy in the same year that Benito Mussolini began a relationship with a Jewish woman, Vittoria Vitale grows up trusting that her family's position and comfort will keep them safe. When the Second World War arrives, that belief starts to crack. The story follows her as she holds her husband and children together under increasingly impossible conditions, making choices about who to leave behind and what to say goodbye to. Her household becomes a window onto the wider Italian Jewish community as it faces persecution and the upheaval of war. Drawn from careful research, interviews and original historical papers, the book brings daily life to the page through its routines, meals, sounds and smells, and asks what love and regret cost when the world turns against people who believed they were protected.