Child of the Ghetto: Coming of Age in Fascist Italy : 1926-1946 : A Memoir
Machlin was one of seven members of a family of Italian Jews in Pitigliano, a small town in Tuscany, all of whom survived the Holocaust. She describes her memoir as "the story of one little girl as she wrestles with the difficult transition from childhood through adolescence into maturity in the midst of a Christian environment that is at times friendly, more often hostile, always alien." Three family members (the author's parents and one brother) were taken to an Italian concentration camp; the four others went into hiding in the Tuscan countryside from the autumn of 1943 to the summer of 1944. Machlin tells of moving from farm to farm during the night in search of food and shelter, and hiding during the day. Their main enemies were cold and wild animals, and as time went on, the number of farmers willing to shelter them dwindled. Their ordeal ended in June_ 1944, when American troops overran the Germans. This is a story of pain and humiliation, but also one of courage and resilience.George Cohen