This and That

Eliahu Pietruszka was 24 when he fled Warsaw at the beginning of World War II. He left behind his parents and his fifteen-year-old twin brothers, Volf and Zelig. Eliahu’s parents and Zelig were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto and killed in a Nazi death camp, but Volf managed to escape. The brothers briefly corresponded before Volf was sent to a Siberian work camp; then Eliahu lost track of him and assumed he had died. Two weeks ago, Eliahu’s grandson received an email from a cousin in Canada who was working on her family tree. She’s found a form filled out in 2005 by Volf for his brother Eliahu, whom he thought had died. Volf had survived the work camp and passed away in Russia in 2012. Volf’s only child, Alexandre, was able to travel to Israel to visit the 102-year-old uncle he never knew he had.