For more than seven decades, Martin Adler treasured a black-and-white photo of himself as a young American soldier with a broad smile with three impeccably dressed Italian children he is credited with saving as the Nazis retreated northward in 1944.

The 97-year-old World War II veteran met the three siblings – who are now octogenarians themselves – in person for the first time on Monday. It was a happy ending to a story that could easily have been a tragedy. When Adler first saw the children in 1944, he had his gun trained on a wicker basket where they were hiding.