{"id":22925,"date":"2021-08-24T12:34:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/08\/24\/us-wwii-veteran-reunites-with-italians-he-saved-as-children\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:54:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:54:28","slug":"us-wwii-veteran-reunites-with-italians-he-saved-as-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/veterans\/2021\/08\/24\/us-wwii-veteran-reunites-with-italians-he-saved-as-children\/","title":{"rendered":"US WWII veteran reunites with Italians he saved as children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BOLOGNA, Italy (AP) \u2014 For more than seven decades, Martin Adler treasured a black-and-white photo of himself as a young American soldier with a broad smile with three impeccably dressed Italian children he is credited with saving as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/off-duty\/military-culture\/2021\/05\/18\/last-living-members-of-hitlers-third-reich-speak-in-chilling-new-documentary-final-account\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Nazis retreated<\/a> northward in 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Monday, the 97-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2019\/12\/13\/nuts-us-troops-thwarted-hitlers-last-gamble-75-years-ago\/\" target=\"_blank\">World War II <\/a>veteran met the three siblings \u2014 now octogenarians themselves \u2014 in person for the first time since the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adler held out his hand to grasp those of Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana Naldi for the joyful reunion at Bologna\u2019s airport after a 20-hour journey from Boca Raton, Florida. Then, just as he did as a 20-year-old soldier in their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2020\/11\/13\/the-story-behind-netflixs-wwii-series-the-liberator-500-days-of-combat-from-sicily-to-dachau\/\" target=\"_blank\">village of Monterenzio<\/a>, he handed out bars of American chocolate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLook at my smile,\u2019\u2019 Adler said of the long-awaited in-person reunion, made possible by the reach of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a happy ending to a story that could easily have been a tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The very first time the soldier and the children saw each other, in 1944, the three faces peeked out of a huge wicker basket where their mother had hidden them as soldiers approached. Adler thought the house was empty, so he trained his machine gun on the basket when he heard a sound, thinking a German soldier was hiding inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe mother, Mamma, came out and stood right in front of my gun to stop me (from) shooting,\u2019\u2019 Adler recalled. \u201cShe put her stomach right against my gun, yelling, \u2018Bambinis! Bambinis! Bambinis!\u2019 pounding my chest,\u2019\u2019 Adler recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat was a real hero, the mother, not me. The mother was a real hero. Can you imagine you standing yourself in front of a gun and screaming \u2018Children! No!\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adler still trembles when he remembers that he was only seconds away from opening fire on the basket. And after all these decades, he still suffers nightmares from the war, said his daughter, Rachelle Donley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The children, aged 3 to 6 when they met, were a happy memory. His company stayed on in the village for a while and he would come by and play with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Giuliana Naldi, the youngest, is the only one of the three with any recollection of the event. She recalls climbing out of the basket and seeing Adler and another U.S. soldier, who has since died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey were laughing,\u2019\u2019 Naldi, now 80, remembers. \u201cThey were happy they didn\u2019t shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She, on the other hand, didn\u2019t quite comprehend the close call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe weren\u2019t afraid for anything,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She also remembers the soldier\u2019s chocolate, which came in a blue-and-white wrapper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe ate so much of that chocolate,\u2019\u2019 she laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Donley decided during the COVID-19 lockdown to use social media to try to track down the children in the old black-and-white photo, starting with veterans\u2019 groups in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually the photo was spotted by Italian journalist Matteo Incerti who had written books on World War II. He was able to track down Adler\u2019s regiment and where it had been stationed from a small detail in another photograph. The smiling photo was then published in a local newspaper, leading to the discovery of the identities of the three children, who by then were grandparents themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They shared a video reunion in December, and waited until the easing of pandemic travel rules made the trans-Atlantic trip possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI am so happy and so proud of him. Because things could have been so different in just a second. Because he hesitated, there have been generations of people,\u2019\u2019 Donley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The serendipity isn\u2019t lost on Giuliana Naldi\u2019s 30-year-old granddaughter, Roberta Fontana, one of six children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren who descended from the three children hidden in the wicker basket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cKnowing that Martin could have shot and that none of my family would exist is something very big,\u201d Fontana said. \u201cIt is very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During his stay in Italy, Adler will spend some time in the village where he was stationed, before traveling on to Florence, Naples and Rome, where he hopes to meet Pope Francis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy dad really wants to meet the pope,\u201d Donley said. \u201cHe wants to share his message of peace and love. My dad is all about peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a happy ending to a story that could easily have been a tragedy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,23,93,12,25,19],"tags":[8532],"coauthors":[6123],"class_list":["post-22925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-veterans","tag-italy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZDXYVMGIW5AY7OHA7DTZECHSTE","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2021\/08\/24\/us-wwii-veteran-reunites-with-italians-he-saved-as-children\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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