 Thus, despite Gemma's intimate connection with a powerful American politician, who was then director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), it took two years for her to be cleared and sent to the United States.She returned to New York in May 1947, where she was reunited with her brother only four months before he died.As he had made no provision for her, she lived in very reduced circumstances, in a public housing project in Queens, New York, until her death in 1962.