Long Lost Cousins Unite in Israel Thanks to Online Holocaust Database

(AP-Washington Post) For five long years during World War II, Nahum Korenblum never left the side of his younger brother Yaakov as the two fled the Nazi invasion of Poland, escaped forced labor camps across Europe and ultimately joined the Soviet Red Army. There, they were separated and dispatched abroad, never to meet again. On Thursday, more than a decade after they died, their children were united at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial thanks to a recently uploaded family photo discovered on its comprehensive online database of Holocaust victims. In 1958, shortly after Yaakov moved to Israel, he filled out a page of testimony at Yad Vashem. Nahum had meanwhile settled in Ukraine. For the rest of their lives, the brothers searched for each other in vain. In 2006, Yaakov's daughter, Bracha Fleishman-Korenblum, updated the online entry, attaching an old black-and-white photo of her grandparents and four of their children - including Nahum and Yaakov. Two months ago, one of Nahum's American grandchildren stumbled upon the entry and was shocked to recognize his grandfather in the picture. He reached out to the Korenblum clan in Israel and a reunion was put into motion.


2011-11-18 00:00:00

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