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ENDED

My Brother,
My Sister,
Sold for a Fistful of Lire

Following World War II, Italy was a place of such great privation that tens of thousands of young children, especially in the rural South, were "sold" to a Neapolitan-American adoption agency for a few thousand lire. The Catholic Church organized this effort.

MY BROTHER, MY SISTER... follows the efforts of Pia Dilisa to find her siblings, who were 7 and 9 years old when they were shipped to America in 1952, never to be heard from again. Pia's remarkable quest, 45 years later, is punctuated by mind-boggling interviews with church officials (in Rome and New York) who stonewall her: somehow records were not kept or cannot be found today; "it all happened so very long ago," she's told. Pia is a salt-of-the-earth heroine - embued with tenacity, unfailing decency, and loyalty to a brother and sister she hardly remembers. Her story is enthralling.