The experience of Italian Jews under fascism was a strange mixture of acceptance and betrayal, of sympathy and brutal persecution. Jews and fascists co-existed as they did nowhere else - there were even Jewish members of the Italian Fascist Party, enthusiastic and welcomed supporters of Benito Mussolini - though leagued with Hitler - staunchly refused to co-operate in the deportation of Jews. The author recreates this contradictory time with the personal stories of five Jewish families.