Smoke over Birkenau

Winner of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award

An Italian-Jewish journalist and schoolteacher who joined the Italian partisans in 1943, Liana Millu was arrested in 1944 and deported to Birkenau. The astonishing stories in this book tell of the women who lived and suffered alongside her.

"One of the most powerful European testimonies to come from the women's lager at Auschwitz-Birkenau." --Primo Levi

"An engrossing, powerful set of narratives, beautifully translated." --Phillip Lopate

"This Italian testament has both polish and poetry and strong images of suffering barely borne, but more indelibly it serves as a particular focus into the specially female hell of the camps." --Kirkus Reviews