The last few years I have been drawn to true accounts of WWII, specifically ones in areas beyond the war movies of Hollywood that through the decades have, for the most part, focused on Britain, France and Germany. Of course these areas all had major battles, but I have been drawn to the story within the story. Something more personal and unexpected, like Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand which focused on the war in the Pacific. Frankly, I just knew about the beginning of the American involvment (Pearl Harbor), and the end (bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Then there was The Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts which recounts the story of a U.S. mission to rescue Lipizzaner horses that the Nazis had taken from their occupied countries. Or Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope by Wendy Holden about pregnancy and birth in concentration camps.
So anyway, you probably get the idea. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan is the same kind of book. Based in Italy during the last years of Nazi occupation, it follows a young Italian named Pino who helps Jews escape by leading them over the Alps, and later is a spy imbedded in the German army. Yep, his parents talk him into enlisting in the German army so he doesn’t get drafted and become a disposable cog in the massive Nazi war machine. Not sure I could have requested that from one of my sons, but sounds like they had a better chance of staying local if they enlisted, maybe? I don’t want to give too much away, but thru Pino’s eyes we see horror, happiness, love, triumph, great heartache and injustices. His account of the horrific brutalities the Italians inflicted on each other after the Nazi’s left, still make me cringe when I think about them. In the movies I’ve seen, that I remember anyway, the Allies come in, drive the evil away and everything is sunshine and roses. Honestly, I never really thought about what it would be like: the feelings of helplessness and impotence that would explode into a need for action once the shackles were off….the mob mentalality that makes oppressed people do in the collective what they probably wouldn’t do alone.
Bottom line, if you want to read a compelling WWII story drawn from a diffrent point of view than the norm, I highly recommend Beneath a Scarlett Sky….