And... It is that which makes this story all the more amazing. Two brothers find each other 60 years after the holocaust.
About 2 years ago I went to a wedding here in Jerusalem. The most amazing thing happened on a trip to the bathroom. I was just washing my hands and half listening to a group of about four elderly women talking. One woman said to the other that she looked just like a cousin of hers she had growing up. After a few minutes of excited babble and tears it became apparent that these two woman were indeed cousins who had been separated in the holocaust. One was visiting from America, on the bride's side, and the other was living in Israel and was somehow related to the groom's family. There was not a dry eye in the bathroom that night. I will never forget the feeling I had standing there and being able to share in that moment.About eight years ago, Avraham Paskesz contacted a representative of the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld in Israel to ask him for helping in getting compensation from the German Government, which required documentation to provide the monetary reparations being offered."I did not have any documents, and did not have any memory," he said. After acquiring proper documentation to get the benefits, he maintained contact with the
researcher over the years.
The breakthrough in the case came after his 63 year old brother who lived in virtual anonymity for all the decades, recently applied to the Hungarian Government for compensation, and the two long-lost siblings were finally linked up by the Holocaust researcher, (who had years of expertise on working on Klarsfeld's nine-volume compilation of the names of Holocaust victims, which have been transferred to Yad Vashem's new computerized listings.)
Reunited in Jerusalem Sunday for the first time in 61 years, the two elderly men, their features distinct but similar after all these years --the one dark skinned the other light -- embraced, and, and in a complete state of awe, sat over the family photos.
