Professor Describes War-Time Survival, Deliverance in Small-Town Italy
Our third program of the year is one you won’t want to miss. Our speaker, Car mine Vittoria, will tell us a story of fami ly, a story of hardship and survival, through the eyes of a boy growing up in a small town near Naples before, during and shortly after World War II. The author spent two years writ ing the book, “Bitter Chicory to Sweet Espresso.”
The title is a met aphor for the hard times and better times of WW II in the Naples area (1940-1949). He pulled together his own recollections and those of his fam ily members and boyhood friends during trips to Italy with his wife. This human and military story is being told from what a child saw and heard then in the town of Avella. He describes his town as a beautiful place with f ields of flowers, resembling a Monet painting. But it’s a place whose people have suffered greatly.
For over 3,000 years, the author points out, invading armies have come and gone, and the town has adapted and survived all these invasions. His own family endured many hard ships, but he quotes the Neapolitan credo “ci arrangiamo” (“we adapt to survive”). He believes that the full story of WW II in the Naples area is yet to be told and the book is his effort to shed light on some of the events of that time and to correct the record in what he describes as wrong thinking about what happened during that war.
After WW II, the war, he left his boyhood home to come to America, and he describes the emotion al scene at the ship’s dock where the Mother Superior of his school came to see him off. Even tually the boy became Professor Carmine Vitto ria, who worked at the Naval research Laborato ry as a physicist before teaching at Northeastern University as a full professor of electrical and computer engineering. He retired in 2016. Professor Emeritus Vittoria received his Ph.D. in applied quantum physics from Yale University in 1970.
He is the author of three scientific books, one soccer book and over 400 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is Life Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering), Fellow of the APS (American Physical Society) and he has received many scientific awards. He is also a champion bocce player. “Bitter Chicory to Sweet Espres so” is his first non-scientific book. At the end of the program, to be held at Casa Italiana, we will have a raffle with some wonder ful prizes and there will be an opportunity to buy the book “Bitter Chicory to Sweet Espres so” and have the author sign it. The deadline for paid registrations is June 6.