A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

Somehow in my faulty memory of the details of WWII, I have linked Mussolini and Hitler as marching together until the end. Not so.  Mussolini was ousted in 1943 about the same time that both the Allies and Hitler invaded the country.  In the meantime Jews from all over Europe joined the Jews of Italy in seeking a safe hiding place in the countryside of northern Italy.  This is the story of the brave Italian citizens who risked everything to hide these Jews as well as the partisans who took up the fight to free Italy from all the invaders.  The politics may be complicated but the humanity is simple.  Well researched for historical accuracy, the characters are fictional but the events from September of 1943 to VE day in 1945 are based on true events.  There are many lessons to be learned but above all, in war, the line between the good guys and the bad guys is not as clear as we would like it to be.