Venice is my hometown. I grew up there during most of my young years and attended first the Ginnasio Liceo Marco Polo (classical Junior and High School) and then the University of Venice (then called Ca’Foscari), from which I graduated after the war with a degree of Dr. in ForeignLanguages and Literatures.
World War II should have ended for all of Italy when King Victor Emmanuel III signed an armistice with the Allies after forcing Mussolini to resign as a Prime Minister. Instead the war went on for over sixteenmonths in Northern Italy, occupied by the Germans and ruled by Mussolini as a Fascist Republic.
Venice was not spared and saw its share of horrors and massacres brought by this situation. I personally witnessed many of them and joined the efforts of other students in the fight against the Nazi and Fascist oppressors.
When I came to the U.S. I enrolled at UCLA, where I got a Master Degree in Italian in three semesters, including the thesis, and a few years later a Ph.D in Italian, French and Spanish Languages and Literatures with a Major in the theater.
A year later I was hired by the California State University, Northridge, as head of their budding Italian program, for which I developed a Minor and staged seven plays in Italian, including La Mandragola by Machiavelli and La Locandiera by Carlo Goldoni, the most famous Venetian playwright. I also published two books in English on Italian desserts, La Dolce Cucina and Solo Dolci, and a book of poetry.
I went back to Venice twenty-five in thirty years to visit my parents and to do research, both written and oral, for what became The Lion and the Swastika.
I presently live in Brentwood and am married to a professor of Chemistry from USC.
Most of the historical background of my book was never written upon, not even by Italian authors.
The Lion and the Swastika is a story of the brutalities of war brought home to a young girl by the fall of Mussolini in 1943 and the consequent Nazi occupation of the entire Veneto region. This is also a romantic story set against the backdrop of terrible war and of a beautiful ancient city – Venice, fascinating in all seasons, from the flowering of spring to the winter magic of snow and high tide. But it is also the story of the awakening of a young woman to the cruelty in the world and the necessity of taking radical action in defense of her ideals and the freedom of her beloved country. In Venice the emblem of the winged Lion of Saint Mark, for centuries the symbol of the glorious Venetian Republic, is still the symbol of the unyielding Venetian people. This story, based on my own experience, is one told here to inspire those who fight for love and freedom.
