A Gift From the Enemy - Excerpt

A Gift from the Enemy: A True Story of Escape in War-Time Italy
Enrico Lamet

Excerpt from A Gift from the Enemy by Enrico Lamet 

The clear stream of uninterrupted flow from the mountain, spurting from the fountain’s single lion head, sent out a tempting invitation. The water was ice cold, sparkling clear, reflecting the purity of the surrounding nature. Holding my fingers under the fast-moving stream I tasted the drippings. Anxiously I cupped my hands to taste the water and, the more I drank, the more I craved it. My thirst refused to be satisfied. To bring my mouth closer to the gush of the precious gift, I clambered up and half-sat on the edge of the narrow stone which was the fountain’s cradle. Only the arrival of a young woman, who had come to fill a large vessel, made me jump off to make room for her. 

She rested the shiny copper cauldron on the steel grate. Her bowl had to be heavy, judging from the thud it created by the meeting of the two metals. 

While the vessel was filling, I watched the girl as she twisted a large rag to form a ring around one hand, then position it on her head. She was slight and surely not more than three or four years older than I. How was she going to carry such a heavy container, I questioned silently, when, wonder of wonders, with surprising strength and agility, she slid the filled cauldron onto one hand, tipped it to spill off some surplus water and, with a twist of the body, lifted and positioned it on the curled rag she had placed on her head. With her legs spaced apart to gain balance, she grasped the container’s two handles and stabilized it. Then, with her back straight and a distinct rhythm, letting her bare feet absorb the full brunt of the pebbly path, she waddled down the dirt road to soon be lost in the distance down the hill. 

More women came to the fountain and carried away large containers of spring water in the same way the young girl had done. However I never saw a man carry more than a small pail during the time I spent there. 

As soon as the fountain became available, I gulped down a few more sips of the cold, refreshing mountain gift before setting off to explore the village. 

I hopped down the steep, dusty gravel path that cut through the heart of the village. The road was narrow, just wide enough for a horse and buggy or a small passenger car. Every one of my bounces raised a puff of dust and shot the sharp feeling of each stone through my leather sandals, adding to my admiration of the skill needed by the girl I saw at the fountain to balance that heavy load barefooted.

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Enrico Lamet recently released a revised and enlarged edition of A Gift from the Enemy: A True Story of Escape in War-Time Italy, a compelling childhood memoir of World War II. 

  

Enrico was born in Vienna, and spent the first eight years of his life in a comfortable middle-class atmosphere with his Jewish mother and father in Austria. At only 8 years of age, the Nazis invaded Vienna, changing the lives of all European Jews forever. The Lamet family fled to Italy, where they spent most of the next twelve years.  

  

Follow along as Enrico and his mother face struggles in fascist WWII Italy, attempting to forge friendships and make a new home. In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a dark time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit. Lamet offers a rare and historically important portrait, one you will not soon forget. 

While the story takes place in Fascist Italy during the Holocaust period, it is not a Holocaust book. 

A Gift from the Enemy was published on October 13, 2013 and is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Story-Escape-War-time-Italy-ebook/dp/B00FVZE77Q 

About Enrico Lamet: 

After World War II ended, Lamet settled in Naples with his family. He finished high school in that city and studied Engineering at the University of Naples.

In 1950 the family moved to the United States, where Lamet continued his engineering studies at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, near his family's home. Deciding that business would be more in keeping with his personality, he embarked on a business career. Over the years he became involved in a variety of enterprises until his eventual retirement as a CEO in 1992.

Fluent in German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Yiddish, Lamet served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department and taught Italian for several years. Lamet has studied piano and voice and, to this day, enjoys performing Neapolitan songs.
 

Enrico Lamet, together with his wife, has 5 children, 7 granddaughters and two great-granddaughters. The Lamet’s live in Pittsfield, Mass. For more information, go to http://www.ericlamet.com/ 

Kirkus Reviews: 

Lamet offers a tender, highly observant memoir of his boyhood years in Italy during World War II.  

With his Jewish mother and father, the author spent the first eight years of his life in Austria in a comfortable bourgeois atmosphere. But then the storm clouds of war forced the family to move from Vienna to Milan, Paris, Nice and San Remo, before they found the obscure sanctuary of Ospedaletto, Italy. Along the way, Lamet's father left for Poland, and therefore plays little role in the remainder of the memoir, but his mother remains a steady force throughout. As the author writes of his days with her, he brings an authentic feel of childhood to the story, and readers will likely remember their own similar, universal joys. He touches upon activities in all manner of daily life, including woodworking, hearing Jewish singers and occasionally eating in restaurants. He also writes of attending summer camp and spending another summer on a farm, and of the kindness of a newswoman who lent him the latest comic books--all while he lived as a Jew in Europe at the wrong time in history. He draws other moments with a quieter, emotional ache: His mother finding a new man ("My parents had never kissed like that in front of me"), his family's lack of food and the terrifying experience of seeing a uniformed German soldier. The book's second section comprises the author's postwar years, and although readers may enjoy finding out what happened to Lamet down the road, his life during wartime is far more gripping, whether he's dodging bombs or learning to love poetry. 

An engaging childhood memoir of World War II.