Description: In 1943 a village in the southern Alpes named Saint Martin Vésubie is occupied by the 4th division of the Italian army and is, incredibly, a haven of brotherhood. Sonia Dreyfus, a young Parisian Jew, recounts her experience during this strange period of time when an occupying army takes Jews under its protection. One thousand two hundred Jews from the four corners of Europe live in Saint Martin, in forced residence, blending in with the other inhabitants, under the indulgent eye of the Italian army. Sonia is madly in love with a handsome Italian lieutenant, Dao Ormena. Their passion is brutally interrupted on September 8th 1943 when Italy signs a peace treaty with the Allies. The Nazis invade Nice and Haute-Savoie. The Italians of Saint-Martin take the mountain path home to Italy. 800 Jews go with them. They hope to find freedom in Italy thanks to the Americans but they run into the Germans instead. Sonia, now pregnant, is taken in by the lieutenant's family and hidden in their isolated Italian village in the Piedmont region, Elva. Sonia comes to love her adopted country. The lieutenant joins the Italian resistance. Deep in the mountains, the French and Italian partisans sign an alliance: the Saretto agreement, a document that has long since been forgotten but was the first to lay down the basis for a democratic Europe without borders. Jacqueline Dana is the author of numerous successful novels, among which Tota Rosa (Mercure de France, 1983), L'Eté du Diable (Albin Michel, 1985); Le Pharmacien de Saint Pol (Lattès, 2008).
