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The Valley of the Germans
Caribbean Green
Assignment Cyprus: Middle East Mission
Threshold of Freedom
Bimini Man
1916: The Creation of the First Nation-state in the 20th Century
Horror House
Red Star 2: Duty and Destiny
The Five Points Concluded: A Novel
303 East Street and Other Stories
Corporate Warfare
Elden Deathwalk: The Warlord Proven: Bk. 2
The Black Opal: An Australian-American Love and War Story
The Lyvest Ones
Murder on the Gringo Trail
Catalyst
China Unicorn Memoirs
Choices
Kiss Me Kill Me
Quasar 169:Illusions: Illusions
Prescription for Death
Night of the Harvest Moon: Vampyre:A Tale of the Living and the Undead
Lost Rites
Death by the Final Edition
The World

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A different view of Tuscany
Unforgettable
Restore your faith in humanity ...
a different view of Tuscany
World War II in the Italian countryside.

War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 (Nonpareil Books, No 13)
Iris Origo
Manufacturer: David R Godine
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Images & Shadows: Part of a Life (Nonpareil Book, 82)
Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D'Orcia
LA Foce: A Garden and Landscape in Tuscany (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
The Merchant of Prato: Francesco Di Marco Datini, 1335-1410 (Nonpareil Book, #41.)
Need to Testify, A

ASIN: 0879234768

Product Description

A classic of World War II, here in its first American edition. War in Val d'Orcia is Iris Origo's elegantly simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in a Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war.

With the immediacy only a diary can have, the book tells how the Marchesa Origo, an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner, kept La Foce and its farms functioning while war threatened to overrun it and its people. She and her husband managed to protect their peasants, succor refugee children from Genoa and Turrin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war-and somehow stand up to the Germans, who in dread due course occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Marchesa to retreat under a hot June sun.

Fleeing eight impossible miles on foot, along a mined road under shell fire, with sixty children in tow, she sheltered her flock in the dubious safety of a nearby village. A few days later, official Fascism disappeared, and La Foce was ransacked by the retreating Wehrmacht. Here, as the restoration of La Foce begins, her book ends.

Beyond praise and above mere documentary value, War in Val d'Orcia belongs to the literature of humanity.

Customer Reviews:

A different view of Tuscany.......2006-08-21

"War in Val D'Orcia" is a rather terse diary of events throughout Italy in 1943-1944 written by the English-born wife of a wealthy landowner in Tuscany. As an account of life under Nazi rule it's not nearly as profound or fascinating as Victor Klemperer's "I Will Bear Witness" but after the first 100 pages (or so) which are somewhat strangely detached and impersonal ("In Rome to have the baby"), and mostly an account of Italian national politics at that time, I literally couldn't put it down.

Until I read this book I had often wondered why there are so many abandoned farm buildings in Tuscany: I now understand that until relatively recently there was a feudal system in place, where farmers did not actually own their land but instead worked it for the landowner in exchange for half of their production. "War in Val D'Orcia" exposed me to aspects of Italian culture that I had never even really thought about before. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history and culture of Italy and Tuscany in particular.

This is the first book by or about Iris Origo that I have read but it won't be the last.

Unforgettable.......2004-05-26

"Greater than the sum of its parts" accurately describes this remarkable diary set in Southern Tuscany during World War II.

Written as a daily record during the tumult of war,Origo does not dwell on emotional reactions to the horror around them. What comes through is the generosity, compassion, and nobility of Spirit that we all are capable of during wretched times.

This diary has had a greater impact on me since after reading it.A book which had lingered with me and one in which I may never forget,I haved been moved to visit La Foce and the region in which this book takes place this Fall.
Highly Recommended.

Restore your faith in humanity ..........2003-04-01

The enthralling story of life on the Origo's estate "La Foce" (just South of Montepulciano in South Tuscany and on the main route of the advancing Allied 8th Army) during the years 1943 and 1944. The contadini farmers and workers on the estate, living in conditions closer to the Middle Ages than the mid Twentieth Century, had no interest in or involvement with the forces of war but equally had no option but to suffer its consequences. They, led by Iris Origo and her Marchese husband, juggled simultaneously playing host to refugee Italian children, escaping British airmen and prisoners of war, partisan fighters, and a German officers' mess, not to mention day to day dealings with facist officialdom. All this in the knowledge that the penalty for a "mistake" was summary execution. An easily readable "must read" not just for those who love Italy and a good story, but for anyone who would like to reaffirm their faith in humanity in the context of a greater understanding of the reality of occupation and war.

a different view of Tuscany.......2002-11-05

Iris Origo makes heroic humanist efforts seem effortless. There is no question as to whether she and her husband will save countless soldiers and civilians, regardless of nationality or politics. I will never view Tuscany with the same eyes, after her description of marching with 28 children (some babies, only 2 her own) over the hills to Montepulciano and safety. The writing is beautiful, the story inspiring.

World War II in the Italian countryside........2002-06-29

Iris Origo is an Anglo American woman married to an Italian called Alberto Origo. She settles in the rural Italian countryside of Tuscany. Her husband is a prominent landowner in a small valley. When Italy gets involved in World War II, Iris keeps a small diary. In the book 1943 and 1944 are revealed as hardship years for the Italian people. Food is scarce, and airplanes are indiscriminate in attacks on civilians and soldiers. What is worse are the Fascists who have become vicious in the face of a sullen people. Origo describes how her and her family managed during these most difficult times. I feel this book is a good read for those who want to discover how a civilian population copes with war.

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A child's heart-wrenching experience in Tito's camps
Living history
Rare glimpse into the life of a Donauschwaben refugee
an interesting read
Learning My Past

Barefoot in the Rubble
Elizabeth B. Walter
Manufacturer: Pannonia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, Second Edition, Fully Revised and Updated
German Boy: A Child in War
Laughter Wasn't Rationed : A Personal Journey Through Germany's World Wars and Postwar Years
The War of Our Childhood: Memories of World War II
A Pebble in My Shoe

ASIN: 0965779319

Customer Reviews:

A child's heart-wrenching experience in Tito's camps.......2006-08-17

Elizabeth Walter has recalled her ordeals in Tito's concentration camps with a child's eye, but a woman's heart. She has been able to inform and yet tug at your heartstrings while she and her mother and brother hungered, fear for their life, endured illness and finally escaped into a safer place in Germany. The journey there was dangerous and hard, yet they made it and thankfully found her father who returned from a Russian labor camp. It's a must read, if you are interested in how the ethnic Germans lived and died during the 1940's.
It's history and it's a memoir of a special girl.

Katherine Flotz, Author
A Pebble in my Shoe

Living history.......2006-03-23

Reading this book was a learning experience, a part of WW11 that I was not aware of. I am glad that I had the opportunity to both learn and enjoy.

Rare glimpse into the life of a Donauschwaben refugee.......2005-12-02

Elizabeth Walter has done a great service to all Germans imprisoned...and often murdered...in Tito-era Yugoslavian concentration camps by writing this memoir. Too many Donauschwaben Germans still living today who experienced being evicted from their homes, their liberties taken from them during post-World War II Yugoslavia just because of their ethnic heritage, will come to tears when asked about what life was like at that time. Most of them understandably just do not have the willingness to recount in detail and at length what had happened to them during that part of their lifetime. For all those who doubt the accounts of their German relatives who lived in Yugoslavia (as well as Hungary) at that time, Elizabeth Walter is among the few who has finally offered a detailed, written memoir so that this part of history will not be completely forgotten. The content provided on the back cover of the hard cover version of this work grabbed me and did not let me go until I finished reading it: "This is not true!" reads the back cover. "The red words written across my essay burned into my heart. I had followed the assignment, I had written about a true life experience, but my high school English teacher, Miss Shay, didn't believe me. I put my essay in my notebook and wrote not another word until years later. As I grew older and watched my children grow up to young adulthood, I felt a need deep within me to let the world know how we were torn out of Yugoslavia as a people." Although the writing of this memoir is a bit amateurish, and not the page-turner that other similar-genred books are such as German Boy, this account of a young girl - whose ancestors, along with thousands of other Germans, were given free land in Yugoslavia along the Danube river during the seventeenth century to develop the area, only to be persecuted solely for their German blood during the mid-twentieth century (although against and not in any way affliated with the political structure of Germany at that time) - is a rare find.

an interesting read.......2005-04-30

The book was really a story in survival and how the family made it through all the hardships. Very inspiring.

Learning My Past.......2003-12-12

My grandmother is the kindest lady as most of them are and she was also a German refugee taken into a concentration camp by the Russians during WWII. Growing up I never quite understood how my grandmother was in a concentration camp since she and we are not Jewish. Until I listened to her story a few weeks ago, at the age of 22 and about to graduate from college, I had no clue about Germans who had nothing to do with the war that were treated so horribly and punished for crimes they did not know existed let alone had any control over. How could one fight for the Jews to stop being persecuted and then persecute others! How hypocritical and inhumane. It makes me sick but I felt as though I needed to read this book because my grandmother said Elizabeth Walter's story is similar to her own and my grandmother does not want to have to tell the gruesome details to me and my family. I hope eyes are opened by this book but I hope that people are not too disgusted like I'm afraid I have been. It makes me extrememly appreciative of all that I have!

"History of Schohaire county and border wars"

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"History of Schohaire county and border wars"
Jeptha Root Simms
Manufacturer: Schoharie County Council of Senior Citizens, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

The Landis Valley Cookbook: Pennsylvania German Foods

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The Landis Valley Cookbook: Pennsylvania German Foods
Landis Valley Museum
Manufacturer: Landis Valley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0967523702

Girl Captives of the Cheyennes: A True Story of the Capture and Rescue of Four Pioneer Girls, 1874 (Frontier Classics)

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Eye-Witness History
Gripping Tale

Girl Captives of the Cheyennes: A True Story of the Capture and Rescue of Four Pioneer Girls, 1874 (Frontier Classics)
Grace E. Meredith
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Captivity of the Oatman Girls Among the Apache and Mohave Indians (Dover Books on the American Indians)
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ASIN: 0811731588

Customer Reviews:

Eye-Witness History.......2007-04-28

Zane Grey called his copy of this book "one of the prized volumes of my Western library" and it is almost unique. On 9/11 in 1874, a lone wagon with a family of nine was ambushed in western Kansas, the parents and three of the older children were killed, and a massive manhunt that mobilized armies across the west was put into action. The two youngest girls were rescued in a daring attack that earned the commander a Congressional Medal of Honor. The older girls were surrendered the following spring.

The story is told from the perspective of the oldest surviving daughter by her niece. I appreciated it because I like to go to the source (I read 19th century books as a hobby) and this gives a first-person account of what it was really like to live in the Cheyenne culture in the mid 1870's. It is balanced in the sense that it is honest and not written to incite hostility or revenge. I have other manuscript reports of this incident and this is consistent with them.

The new introduction by Peter Cozzens is very helpful in filling in some facts--not all of them very pleasant. He also broadens the perspective to include events and movements that are beyond the scope of the original book.

One of the most worthwhile parts of the book is just the amazing resiliancy of the German (the "Ger" is pronounced hard as in "Grape") girls. Despite amazing trauma, they grew up to live relatively normal, happy, long lives. It's worth reading, even if you are not primarily a historian.

Gripping Tale.......2005-03-30

Peter Cozzens' introduction is equally as enthralling as the actual story written by the niece of one of the captive daughters. He fills in much information that would not have been included in an account from nearly 80 years ago.
The German sisters, their brother, and parents, attempted to move from Georgia to Colorado over a period of several years. Along the way, they had to stop to earn money and gather provisions to continue. The whole family except the father wanted to remain in Missouri, but Mr. German had his way, and they continued on to Colorado. They were travelling alone, and were attacked by Indians September 11, 1874. Only four of the sisters survived.
One of the most fascinating things is how they eventually had fairly normal lives after they were rescued and rehabilitated.

In the Wilderness With the Red Indians: German Missionary to the Michigan Indians 1847-1853 (Great Lakes Books)

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In the Wilderness with the Red Indians

In the Wilderness With the Red Indians: German Missionary to the Michigan Indians 1847-1853 (Great Lakes Books)
E. R. Baierlein
Manufacturer: Wayne State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0814325815

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In the Wilderness with the Red Indians.......2005-02-07

Touching and beautiful. Baierlein's simple and humble account of his missionary life and work among the Indians inspires. What a hero!
Of particular interest to Lutherans, historians, homeschools, and anyone interested in Native American culture.

History of Schoharie County, and border wars of New York: Containing also a sketch of the causes which led to the American revolution; and interesting memoranda of the Mohawk Valley

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History of Schoharie County, and border wars of New York: Containing also a sketch of the causes which led to the American revolution; and interesting memoranda of the Mohawk Valley
Jeptha Root Simms
Manufacturer: Heritage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Wild Sports: Rambling and Hunting Trips Through the United States of North America (Classics of American Sport)

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Wild Sports: Rambling and Hunting Trips Through the United States of North America (Classics of American Sport)
Friedrich Gerstacker
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Forty-Four Years of the Life of a Hunter: Being Reminiscences of Meshach Browning, a Maryland Hunter, Roughly Written Down by himself (Classics of American Sport)

ASIN: 081173174X

German-American Cookbook: With Emphasis On Recipes Brought To Southern Illinois In 1848 By My Family From Werra Valley

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German Cooking - The American Way!

German-American Cookbook: With Emphasis On Recipes Brought To Southern Illinois In 1848 By My Family From Werra Valley
William D. Setzekorn
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

German Cooking - The American Way!.......2002-04-17

In this crisply written, thoroughly accessible book designed for the home chef, author William D. Setzekorn has adapted a full repertoire of recipes handed down through the generations. Representatives of the cuisine brought to the United States by German immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, this treasure trove of family favorites has been adapted to suit the contemporary American kitchen. All ingredients are readily available in any market and many convenience products have been integrated without compromising the authenticity of the dishes.

A full range of courses is offered here: appetizers like chicken liver pâté and stuffed mushrooms; potato, asparagus and chicken soups; a surprising array of seafood choices. There is an assortment of interesting preparations for game birds - pheasant in orange sauerkraut and duckling braised in red cabbage; roast goose with fruit stuffing.

For the heartiest appetites there are plenty of savory roast, schnitzels and stews, creamed vegetables and many variations on the ubiquitous cabbage. Still hungry for something sweet...try German pancakes or one of the strudel, kuchen or cookie recipes. This is an ethnic cookbook, but one so full of homey comfort foods of any American kitchen that the German-American Cookbook will be a popular addition to any home culinary library.

Keramik an Weser, Werra und Fulda (Schriften des Mindener Museums fur Geschichte, Landes- und Volkskunde)

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Keramik an Weser, Werra und Fulda (Schriften des Mindener Museums fur Geschichte, Landes- und Volkskunde)

Manufacturer: Uhle und Kleimann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3922657206

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