TEN YEARS SPENT IN ATTIC

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 3

TEN YEARS SPENT IN ATTIC

Italian Who Fled From Nazis (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, August 5. Fear of approaching Germans drove Pietro Alberti into a dark attic room in his brother’s house near Albenga 10 years ago, states the Associated Press correspondent in Rome. He has now been released by the police, for the door in the tiny room was locked. His first words as he came trembling and blinking into the sunlight were: “Is the war over? Have the Germans gone?” The police took Pietro, who is 60, to hospital suffering from malnutrition and arthritis. They then took his brother. Giovanni Alberti, into custody. They said they would question him on charges of failure to aid properly a member of his family. It took two hours to cut away Pietro’s growth df beard and hair, and to trim his IJin finger nails. Pietro had been locked half-nude in the tiny attic since he fled to 'his brother for hiding in fear of gunners who were laying defence works in the orchards and gardens. Giovanni was said by the police to have denied mistreating his brother. Pietro, he told the officers, remained locked in the attic only because of his own fear to come out.