This 102-year-old Holocaust survivor has been living his life thinking his whole family perished during World War II. Thanks to Dad Vashem – Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Center, Eliahu Pietruszka has had the chance to meet his long-lost nephew in his retirement home located in Kfar Saba, Isreal.
Pietruszka, a retired microbiologist, fled Poland in 1939 when he was only 24 years old, leaving his parents and younger twin brothers, who were only 15 years old at that time, behind. After losing all contact with his family during the Holocaust, Pietruszka believed his whole family, including his brother Volt – who is his nephew’s father, had perished in the war.
“It makes me so happy that at least one remnant remains from my brother, and that is his son,” said Pietruszka, tears welling in his eyes. “After so many years I have been granted the privilege to meet him.”
After leaving Warsaw, Pietruszka settled in the Soviet Union, where he met his wife. They eventually migrated to Israel in 1949. His brother Volt, on the other hand, was sent to a Siberian work camp and ended up settling in Magnitogorsk, in the Ural mountains where he died in 2011.
Through the Yad Vashem online database of Holocaust victims who has reunited thousands of relatives that lost touch during the war, the relatives were able to find each other and after a brief chat on Skype, 66-year- old Alexandre decided to travel to Israel from Russia to meet his uncle he never knew he had in person.
“It’s a miracle. I never thought this would happen… I had relatives in Ukraine, but they were on my mother’s side.” Alexandre told his uncle, and he replied with tears in his eyes, “You know you have a big family here in Israel. You won’t be alone. You wont be alone. I have waited for 70 years to see you.”
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