On the Season 3 finale of Finding Your Roots on PBS, Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman learns that his great-grandmother “Libba”‘ survived in a Russian concentration camp for five years after both her husband and son were killed. He then discovers that “she fought against almost unimaginable obstacles to enter the country in 1930 at age 62 after losing her left arm, suffering from poor vision and being described as “senile.””
Here’s the clip from the show when he learns this.
Note his reaction – his raw reaction shows just watch a proud Jew he really is.
https://youtu.be/jguJPEyJ6Pg
Sadly, while my grandparents were alive, I had no interest in their pasts or hearing their stories. By the time I was interested, they were all gone.
As an adult, I made trips to Poland and Belgium to find out. It would have been so much easier just to ask them.
The Red Star museum in Antwerp is a marvelous, new museum which explains how Russian Jews, among others, made their way across Europe to the US, Canada, and England.
if your parents are still around, have them record an oral history
i forgot to do that with my mom
Too bad that Hoffman has turned into a regular Israel basher. I have no use for that show after they gave in to Ben Affleck and refused to mention that he had slave owners in his background but told him that he was descended from Revolutionary War soldier.
he is a cousin by marriage on my mother ohev v’shalom side
his family refused to have anything to do with mine, and we reached out many times
maybe now that he accepts that he is jewish, we can have him over for a shabbas meal