[Aunt Anna in front of the house of Brig] Today I want to greet my great-aunt, Aunt My father, who on Thursday December 30 has left this life.
I do not remember it so sad, but rather leave a small trace of her here, with the regret of having last seen two years ago and have not yet "time" the passion for photography, I'm sorry not doing more pictures with her e soprattutto di non aver registrato i suoi racconti.
Quello che mi entusiasmava di lei erano infatti le vicende eccentriche della sua vita:
ha vissuto a Berlino durante la seconda guerra mondiale, lavorando come dattilografa, sotto i bombardamenti.
Non abbiamo mai ben capito per chi lavorasse, ma il racconto della città bombardata, come quello della sua vita di bambina qui a Peveragno, la vita poi a Nizza da giovane adulta dopo la guerra, e soprattutto i racconti dei tanti viaggi mi incantavano per ore.
[Zia Anna e Robert, zio Beppe e Mariuccia, nonna Rita e nonno Antonio a Briga] Nella sua bellissima casa a Nizza,aveva due teche di vetro ripiene di minerali provenienti from around the world, from places where it had been, and a giant hall of the house of Picasso's Guernica.
I've always adored, for his gab, his adventurous life, the impetuous nature, that when I met her I always said that I looked like and "you just have the eyes of blacks Botto, you can not go wrong" .
She told me that his passion for the school and the pain experienced as a child for not being able to study over the few years of primary school, despite being very smart and with his studies.
One of his brothers, John, born 1916, (they were in 4, and her three brothers and one of them was my grandfather Antonio), was missing in Russia in the retreat and she was very fond of he began to move heaven and earth to find him, wrote to prosecutors and presidents, to find after many years of letters, research, survey, the chaplain who gave his blessing to the battalion before the last battle in which both of this track uncle, probably in Rovno January 18, 1943, when Italian soldiers were then probably trampled by Soviet tanks.
Now I do not know what I'd give to have his briefcase stuffed with papers, interviews, letters he had received during this extraordinary research that shows us all the time. Unfortunately
being ill for some time, Aunt Anna is no longer remembered where he put his folder and now as many of his other things we lost track.
[Portrait of Aunt Anna made by me in Brig, June 14, 1997] While in London I heard about his death, and I remembered one of the stories that I loved her more, one in which he told us that I went to China Town and had bought a whole duck fudge to take home.
So, seeing the caramel chicken hung in the districts of China, that I could not think of her and I loved that story so much as a child and that seemed mythical, unreachable. Now the chickens hanging
I saw them too!
With these words I bring into the consciousness of having so much of her, of his character, his tremendous stubbornness, his love for travel and for the stories. I'll keep my eyes wide open blacks eyes to the world again and again, aunt, even for you. Give
grandfather, who I never met, and your brother John, who now have finally found after many years of research :-) 
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