Desperate Inscriptions: Graffiti from the Nazi Prison in Rome 1943-1944

In the slim though insightful Desperate Inscriptions: Graffiti from the Nazi Prison in Rome 1943-1944, Stanislao G. Pugliese, a professor of modern European history at Hofstra University and author of Carlo Rosselli, opens the doors of the former SS and Gestapo headquarters and prison in Rome. Now called the Museo Storico della Liberazione di Roma, the museum commemorates anti-fascists who helped liberate Rome. Pugliese's thoughtful narrative, accompanied by black-and-white photos by Lianna Miuccio, documents the lives of such antifascist prisoners as Arrigo Paladini, who wrote on the wall as he was dying, ""There is nothing that can give the joy of a beautiful death as the consciousness of having served the country until the last breath of life.""