Through our archives, we are still reuniting families that were separated during the Holocaust to this very day. Paul and Marietta, cousins by blood, only learned about each other’s existence recently. Their families lost contact as violence toward Jews escalated in Germany, and they had assumed the worst.
Paul Alexander was the youngest Kind, escaping Nazi-occupied Europe on the Kindertransport orchestrated by World Jewish Relief. We knew his story well, having supported him on his arrival in the UK and helped with his father’s release from Buchenwald concentration camp. We published an article on Paul and his participation in our commemorative Berlin to London bike ride in 2018 with his son. But like Paul, we were unaware of Marietta’s existence across the Atlantic Ocean in New York.
When lockdown struck, Marietta’s daughter-in-law, Aria, decided to do some digging. After many months involving a private investigator, a 50,000-strong Facebook genealogy group (Tracing the Tribe), and, crucially, our article on Paul, she worked out the two were related.
Paul’s uncle Isidore had sent his only daughter, Marietta’s mother, away to Argentina following violent Nazi attacks, or pogroms. Isidore stayed to fight but was captured and imprisoned in Auschwitz, where he sadly died. Marietta’s mother had never known the true story.
After reaching out to Paul, the cousins first connected online with many tears. They suddenly had a whole new family to get to know and have celebrated many Jewish holidays together virtually. Recently, they managed to meet in person in New York to spend precious time together.
Despite the desperately sad circumstances in which Paul and Marietta’s families were first separated, this incredible story serves as a tale of hope for those with splintered family trees. You can find out about your Jewish family history through our archives; we have the names of over 315,000 people who have contacted us for help, and the records for the 65,000 refugees we supported throughout the 1930s and 1940s.