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"At the height of the Second World War, Italy was being torn apart by German armies, civil war, and the eventual Allied invasion. In a corner of Tuscany, one woman--born in England, married to an Italian--kept a record of daily life in a country at war. Iris Origo's compellingly powerful diary, War in Val d'Orcia, is the spare and vivid account of what happened when a peaceful farming valley became a battleground. At great personal risk, the Origos gave food and shelter to partisans, deserters, and refugees. They took in evacuees, and as the front drew closer they faced the knowledge that the lives of thirty-two small children depended on them. Origo writes with sensitivity and generosity, and a story emerges of human acts of heroism and compassion, and the devastation that war can bring"--… (more)
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As the war raged, all essentials such as food, clothing, medicine and heating fuel were in short supply and if you had some you had to hide it from the foraging German troops. Origo was constantly searching for food and clothing for Italian refugees, escaped Allied prisoners of war, down fliers and partisans groups who fought an underground war against the Germans and remaining Fascists.
The diary while written by a woman of privilege is a vivid picture of life in war torn Italy as experienced by the people who only wished to look after their crops and animals.