Martin Adler died, met three children in 1944

The story of the soldier Martin Adler and his journey across the Atlantic to meet 77 years later the three children met during the war in Italy, now over eighty, had traveled around the world. The U.S. veteran died yesterday at the age of 99, in Florida, "peacefully and surrounded by his family," his daughter Rachelle said.
Martin's long life had become a fairy tale, thanks to the appeal launched on social media by his daughter, to the mediation work of the journalist Matteo Incerti who had made it possible to trace the three protagonists of the photo that the young soldier, landed to fight the Nazi-Fascists, took near Monterenzio (Bologna), in 1944. The three children, Bruno, Mafalda and Giuliana Naldi suddenly emerged from a basket.
Martin nearly shot him, but stopped just in time. He found them in their eighties, also parents and grandparents: "I am happy, I have waited all my life for this moment", he said, landing at Bologna's Marconi airport, on August 23, 2021.
Their image had always remained with him. Taking photographs for Martin was an antidote to violence, to his role as a war sniper who brought dozens of images of places with him from Italy to the United States. But above all of people.
The photo of him with the children was taken by his comrade-in-arms, John Bronsky, who died in 2011, they were part of the 339th Infatry Regiment. Bronski and Adler had entered a house in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, where in 2021 Adler wanted to return. "Children, children!", the words repeated by Martin in his journey of life in Italy, between laughter and tears, clutching the three, now elderly, after bringing chocolate, as at the time, and a rose.
In recent months two of the three 'children of 1944' have died, the brothers Bruno and Giuliana Naldi. And last summer Matteo Incerti, the journalist-writer from Reggio Emilia who had acted as a mediator to track down the three, also died: he wrote a book on the affair, 'I bambini del soldato Martin'.