In an episode of the PBS program Finding Your Roots, actress Scarlett Johansson, was moved to tears when she learned that her great great uncle and his family met their deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto. For the first time, Johansson discovered the fate of her maternal grandfather's brother and his children thanks to information on a Page of Testimony, commemorating Mosze Szlamberg.
The Page of Testimony was submitted to Yad Vashem in 1956 by Miriam Margalit, Mosze's daughter, who survived the Shoah. According to the biographical information on the Page of Testimony, Mosze Szlamberg was born in Poland in 1880 to Lejbusz and Zlata. He was originally from Grojec, near Warsaw and was married to Dvora (nee Zilbershtein) Szlamberg; they had ten children together.
Pages of Testimony are special forms created by Yad Vashem to restore the personal identities and to record the brief life stories of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices. To date there are some four million seven hundred thousand names of Shoah victims recorded on Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names. The names database, available free of charge online, is a primary resource for people searching for information about their family history during the Shoah.
Zlata, aged 15 and Mendil aged 17, when they died in the Warsaw Ghetto, are also commemorated on Mosze's Page of Testimony. Pages of Testimony were submitted for five additional Szlamberg children, David, born in 1918, Simcha born in 1908, Eliyahu, born in 1902, Malka, born in 1913 and Israel born in 1910.
There are two listings from Polish archival sources about an additional child, Avraham, who reached Uzbekistan and was recorded as having survived the Holocaust in Stettin in 1947. There are no details regarding his current whereabouts. There are also no details regarding the additional child or their mother Dvora Szlamberg.
While Johansson's great-grandfather Saul worked as a grocer in New York City, his brother, Mosze, was a merchant in Warsaw. In a clip published by People, an emotional Johansson stated:
"It’s crazy to imagine that Saul would be on the other side selling bananas on Ludlow Street, and how different it would be being in America at that time. The fate of one brother versus the other."
Johansson explained how the discovery made her feel a greater family connection.
"It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself, that side of my family. I didn’t expect that."
The episode featuring Johansson is scheduled to air on Tuesday, 31 October, on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).
