Trapped in Tuscany Liberated by the Buffalo Soliders: The True World War II Story of Tullio Bruno Bertini | 
 enlarge | Author: Tullio Bruno Bertini
Publisher: Branden Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 480414
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 296
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0937832359
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.540945
EAN: 9780937832356
ASIN: 0937832359
Publication Date: June 1998
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Product Description
This is a true account of the events that occurred in Tullio Bruno Bertini's life between 1939 and 1946. Tullio was born in Boston in 1930. He arrived in Italy with his mother and father on August 1, 1939 after completing the third grade. As a nine year old boy Tullio was in a different culture and found himself trapped in Italy. Even though he was forced to live under Fascist nazi rule, he managed to attend an Italian school, become involved in village life and even learn a new language. In September 1944, he and his family were liberated by the 92nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Fifth Army which was comprised entirely of black soldiers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
A Down-to-Earth Look at Humanity November 2, 2008
This is a great book. The author does not write with the touch of a professional but it is because of this that the book is such of gold mine! It is penned with a down-to-earth style. Books like this give one great insight into the everyday happenings during war time which are seldom captured by professional historians, whose goal is to capture the greater scheme of events. To learn about a great event or crisis, you must read the works of historians. However, to fully understand such things, you must compliment these works with books that present common, everyday humanity in such circumstances.
Tullio Bertini performed a great service by showing us slices of real life that few in this life are privy to experience. The author shows that children in times of war desire what they want during times of peace; they want to make friends, play games, learn things and so on, irrespective of the culture. The author shows the hardship, camaraderie and bravery exhibited in times of great crisis. A good example is where the area priest was able to save 300 people from deportation by leading them to a safe haven. Another example is the story of a priest who hid Jews from the Germans and Fascists. This chronicle demonstrates a common human bond among people, a bond which leadership tries to destroy for its own warped reasons but in the final analysis never can.
Molte Grazie Signore Bertini per il vostro capolavoro!
 An amateur personal history January 2, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Tullio Bertini has written an earnest, but amateur book about his childhood experiences in Italy. His memories of his life there are interesting, but don't come to life because he's not very skilled at narrative, but only at writing "just the facts". He includes plenty of detail about what was going on in WW II at the time -- a little too much, it seemed to me. He also tells a lot about how things were done in his village, such as harvesting and roasting chestnuts, making charcoal, etc. The book is nearly half over before the Germans show up in town. Then he does relate some telling incidents, such as the first time Allied warplanes strafed some Germans who were mining a bridge, and what he saw and how he reacted. Contrary to the title, he was not liberated by the Buffalo Soldiers, but by Brazilians! The Buffalo Soldiers arrived several days later. This is an excellent personal history for his family to keep, but does not qualify as a professional memoir.
Trapped in Tuscany August 27, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Mr. Bertini's story is a very insightful account of the Nazi occupation, of the eroding Fascist Party of Mussolini, of the heroic effort of the Resistance, and of the liberation of his family's village by the Allies. It's also a narrative of Tuscan village life and Italian family traditions. His descriptions of various crafts of the villagers, methods of farming by the contadini, and the processing and preparation of the typical products of the region are incomparable. I have read Trapped in Tuscany three times and have visited Diecimo after each reading, to relive the events of the war and Tullio's extraordinary boyhood adventure.
A wonderful tale well told August 14, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have been reading up on the war in Italy, and this story was a refreshing change from the narratives of battles big and small. I recently visited Diecimo on my way past Lucca, saw the house of Tullio, and spoke with a local who was also a boy during the war. This story helped me understand from another perspective the incredible damage done to the Italian people by the Nazi forces and to the infrastructure by both Germans and Allies.
Signor Tornatore, this would make a great movie script August 19, 2001
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
A retired lawyer and former intelligence officer. This personal memoir describes the six years that an American teenage boy spent with his Italian American parents caught by the outbreak of World War II in their native town in Tuscany. It is an indispensible contribution to the grass-roots, social history of wartime Fascist Italy. It's filled with the amazing details and realities of daily life, reflecting an intimate insight into the social life and customs of a small Tuscan town north of Florence. The story starts prosaically with an explanation of why the family has returned to Italy. It becomes an absorbing story building to a dramatic climax. The German Army attempts to "relocate" the villagers acting in preparation of the German defensive Gothic Line north of the Arno. The villagers escape by walking all night on trails through mountainous terrain to reach an Apennine valley probed by advancing American forces. Those forces are the all-black American "Buffalo Soldiers" of the famous 92nd Division. These dramatic events are told in a straightforward narrative style reminiscent of Hemmingway. The account is informed by the seemingly photographic memory of the man the boy grew to be. The maps and background presentation reflect the training of author Bertini's adult interlude in American Army Intelligence. It is a must read for those who want to know what is was like to be caught in the harsh realities of a war zone, and for Italian-Americans and others would enjoy a first-hand social history of survival in the Italy of World War II. I think Sophia Loren, remembering her childhood wartime experiences, would empathize and recommend this book. It is well organized with an index, a bibliographic reference and 26 pertinent photo illustrations. /s/ J. A. Giordano, Stanford AB, JD, '56.
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