The Holocaust was a deliberate genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany that resulted in the murder of six million people. Millions of people were affected by the Holocaust, so it's likely that you or someone you know has family ties to those who died or survived during that terrible time. Movie releases in 2024Many celebrities have spoken out about their family connections to the Holocaust.
Steven Spielberg
American film director Steven Spielberg's ties to the Holocaust go far beyond his limits World War II movies, Schindler's List. Aish In his biography, he reports: Steven Spielberg: A Life in Film, Spielberg's father lost an estimated 16 to 20 relatives from Ukraine and Poland. He recalled that his parents educated the blockbuster director about the Holocaust through many dinner parties.
Strangely enough, my life kept coming back to images related to the Holocaust. The Holocaust had become a part of my life based on what my parents talked about at the dinner table. We lost cousins, aunts, and uncles.
In fact, Spielberg's exploration of the Holocaust came full circle when he had the courage to delve into its horrors. Schindler's List. probably Spielberg's masterpiece and one best of the 90sHe told the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved more than 1,000 Polish Jewish refugees at the time. Jurassic Park The director wanted to make a film that would “confirm my Jewishness to my family and myself.” beyond Schindler's List, Spielberg is also the founder of the Shoah Foundation, which archives the testimonies of Holocaust survivors.
Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis was born in Ukraine, where 900,000 Jews were murdered during the Nazi occupation. Sun In 2012, That show from the 70s The actress revealed that her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
My whole family took part in the Holocaust: my grandparents died, but few survived.
Kunis also made sure to mention that her upbringing in Ukraine was not a happy one. She recalled seeing her anti-Semitic graffiti at her school in Chernivtsi and how a friend of hers came home crying after someone had stamped a swastika on the back of her seat. . of black swan The actress stressed that after the Holocaust, Russians were not allowed to have religious beliefs, but her parents made sure she remembered her roots.
After the Holocaust, it was not allowed to be religious in Russia. So my parents raised me and taught me that I was Jewish. you know who you are.
Gene Simmons
florence cline's mother kiss Frontman and former jingle Famous Judge Gene Simmons, apparently told little to his son about his experiences in the Holocaust. However, according to israel timesThe Israeli-born musician contacted a German newspaper two years after his mother died and got some answers.
On the 75th anniversary of Klein's release from Mauthausen, then 19 years old, Simmons received a 100-page document describing what happened to his mother during the Holocaust. The mother's statement to the former compensation office in Koblenz is as follows:
In November 1944 I was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. There I lived in block 21, worked in the fields and collected potatoes outside the camp. I wore old civilian clothing with a white oil (painted) cross on the back. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the SS.
Klein was transferred to the Fenusberg branch of the Flossenburg concentration camp in January 1945, arriving in Mauthausen two months later. Simmons found the name of her grandmother, Esther Blau, in a document stating that she had died in a Nazi gas chamber. While reading her documents, the “Detroit Rock City” singer discovered one more important thing about her mother.
she was strong She fought all this alone.
Lisa Kudrow
Inside Lisa Kudrow Celebrity genealogy shows Who do you think you are?, She wanted to find answers to the things her father taught her as a child about her family's connections to the Holocaust. The TV star traveled to Minsk, Belarus for the episode and learned that nearly all of Belarus' Jews were murdered at the hands of the Nazis.
One of them was Kudrow's great-grandmother, Meri Mordejovich, who was among the Jewish nationals ordered to march to the warehouse, stripped and entered the building, where she was shot and killed. The Nazis then doused the walls with oil and set the building on fire. The former response, according to Kvellar: friend The actress said in the episode:
People were stripped, shot, burned, and the details make it even more devastating to imagine what it must have been like for them.
It was her cousin, Yuri Bardin, who broke the news to Kudrow's grandmother about Meri Mordejovich, who had long been believed to be dead. Easy A The actress went on Ancestry.com and discovered that her cousin Yuri was still alive. Kudrow met him and his grandchildren, and then got in touch with her father.
Josh Gad
He is known for his work in. frozen The series is Top ranking of Disney animated moviesJosh Gad is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. This year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, beauty and the beast Actors posted in Instagram A family photo of grandparents who were separated from their parents and imprisoned in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
For nearly five years, and the rest of their youth, they are forced to work for their oppressors, living on a piece of bread. They will be tortured, humiliated and branded like cattle. Only through sheer strength and willpower, the two were able to escape the Nazis on their respective death marches. Throughout their lives, they always uttered the familiar words: “Never forget.”
Gad's post ends with a powerful reminder that we are two generations away from a world where Jews were targeted for “nothing but their identity and faith.” He concludes with a message we should all take to heart:
On this day, I pray that we may build a world that learns from those lessons.
These famous families experienced unspeakable tragedies during the Holocaust, but they survived and demonstrated resilience. A-list celebrities are helping to keep the memories of their ancestors alive through their stories. Each survivor's story will help future generations understand the depth of the atrocities that occurred in the world.
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