World News for Students of English

06-05-2022 07:00

90-year-old Meri Mion said that she will never forget her last birthday. She celebrated it last week.

Meri was 13 years old when she and her family hid on their Italian farm as German and American forces fought in the last days of World War II. When they awoke to see the US liberation of their village, Meri’s mother baked her a birthday cake, and she left it to cool on the windowsill. However, it disappeared, and apparently hungry US soldiers took it.

77 years later, a special ceremony remembered the arrival of US forces in the town of Vincenza in 1945, and US soldiers presented Meri with a new cake to replace the old one. During the war, Italians greeted US soldiers with cheers, wine and bread.  The US and local Italian officials said that eight decades later, the relations were still warm.

Difficult words: liberation (the time to set people free), replace (to put something or someone in the place of something else), windowsill (a shelf below a window).

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