In the Face of Evil: The Sustenance of Traditions, focuses on four women whom Peter Petschauer calls his mothers. The wars of the twentieth century deeply affected them, as did the brutal Fascist and National Socialist regimes in Italy and Germany. Two of the women lived in Italy's Dolomites and two in Germany. Traditions sustained them and their families in these terrible times through the routines of their households and their lives. The details of daily living allow a clear view of values that are often ignored by historians in search of seemingly more important political events and public activities. These were the women who most influenced the author and stand here for all the women who were able to resist the ideologies of the Fascists and Nazis and survive two world wars.