TEL AVIV, Israel (Press Release)– Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medicine service and operator of the national blood services center, is also Israel’s national society within the international movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Under this capacity, MDA operates a division for tracing. The organization’s association with the Red Cross exposes it to a massive database, turning it into one of Israel’s most successful tracing services.
The division was established less than a decade ago and since then has handled over 5000 inquiries from individuals who have been separated from their loved ones due to conflict and tragedy. There have been roughly seven spectacular cases in which siblings and half-siblings whom hadn’t known about one another for decades, have been reunited. There have been dozens of cases in which first degree family members such as parents and children have been reunited, and even more cases in which cousins of different degrees were reunited.
With International Holocaust Remembrance day coming up on January 27th, it is a great opportunity to share the story of the Brodman family, who survived the Holocaust and was recently able to trace relatives in multiple locations through MDA. The family plans to reunite in Israel in the coming weeks.
The story began on Israel’s national Holocaust Memorial Day. Yaffa Kaplowitz, who lives in Northern Israel, was watching a televised ceremony held at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Musem in Jerusalem. Speaking at the ceremony, was Zehava Roth, who began her speech with a briefing of her family history. She was the daughter of Moshe and Channa Brodman of NowyVisnizce, Poland. Her parents and older brother, Benzion, perished during the war.
Yaffa was the only daughter of Hirsch and Ita Brodman. She was placed in the hands of a non-Jewish family to keep safe during the war, which indeed saved her life. The parents sadly were deported in January 1944 to Auschwitz from the assembly camp of Mechelen in Belgium, where they perished. Once the war ended, one of her maternal uncles came to get her and the two relocated to the U.S. where she grew up. She later moved to Israel. Believing she was the sole survivor of the Brodman family, she was in utter shock when watching Zehava’s speech. She thought, “Could this be? Could Zehava and I be related?”
Yaffa reached out to Susan Edel with MDA’s tracing service who immediately began researching Yaffa’s family history and contacted Zehava to learn more about hers’. Zehava was a seven year old girl when she was left on her own after escaping the Bochnia Ghetto. She managed to survive the war, having gone on the Kindertransport to England and later came to Israel where she got married and started a family. Zehava, also believed that she was the last survivor of her father’s family.
Susan contacted the Belgian Red Cross inquiring about whether they had any information about Hirsch and Ita Brodmann. They did. The couple was born in Poland, moved to Berlin and then fled to Belgium in 1939. With the help of the Belgian Red Cross, Yaffa learned the names of her grandparents which she didn’t know – Avner and Lea Brodman. Susan thought, “These women could really be related”.
Joyce Kahn, a close friend of Yaffa and acquaintance of Zehava called Zehava to ask her if she knew the names of her grandparents. Zehava replied that she did – Avner and Lea. It then dawned on everyone, Zehava’s and Yaffa’s fathers were brothers, and both were the children of Avner and Lea. The excitement hit the roof. Susan immediately put the two women in contact, they spoke on the phone for hours unable to believe the good fortune that had come their way – to find a first cousin, alive, and living in the same country. They later reunited in a meeting joined by their children.
Just a few weeks ago, Susan received about 50 pages of documents about Yaffa’s parents from the Kazerne Dossin Archive in Belgium. The documents included official papers including a copy of Yaffa’s parents’ marriage certificate, a photo of her parents and even a letter in her father’s handwriting. In his letter, her father mentioned names and addresses of two cousins living in the U.S., Adolph and Benjamin Joseph Brodmann. They were also mentioned in a letter from the U.S. State Department regarding visa applications they had filled up for Hirsch, Ita and their daughter, (Jeanne) Yaffa.
After receiving the documents, Susan found Adolph on an online database. She discovered that he used to live in Chicago but later moved to San Diego, where he passed away. Adolph and his wife, Bertha, had three children and Benjamin Joseph Brodman had five children. Soon, Susan found an obituary about the wife of Benjamin’s youngest son, Seymour. The obituary mentioned the synagogue in which the funeral service took place. Susan then contacted the synagogue manager who forwarded Susan’s email to Seymour’s daughter.
Contact was then also made with the descendants of Adolph and Benjamin Joseph Brodman, cousins of Hirsch and his brother Moshe, mother of Zehava Roth. The relatives in the U.S. could not believe that they had family in Israel. They were so excited. They shared photographs of their grandfathers as well as a family tree going back to their great-great grandfather, Avner Brodman (Yaffa and Zehava’s grandfather was Avner, and Adolph’s Hebrew name was Avner, as seen on his tombstone).
Susan Edel: “People are in utter shock when we find their family, they cannot believe that after all these years there are family members that are still alive. Even when they are not, when we are able to provide people with documentation, photos, or other information about the fate of their loved ones, it lets them reach closure. They know that they can stop looking. There’s a sense of peace of mind that now they at least know what happened to them.”
Yaffa Kaplowitz: “From the age of 4 I believed I was the only survivor of my father’s family. Now, thanks to Magen David Adom, not only have I connected with my wonderful and warm first cousin and her family, but also with the descendants of my father’s family in the USA who are just as excited as we are to have found family. I feel that the circle has been closed and that my parents would have been extremely happy to know that we have all reconnected. After all the years of believing I no longer had close family on my father’s side, it is an amazing feeling and great comfort to me.”
And so, from thinking that they were the sole survivors of their paternal family, Yaffa and Zehava now have an extended family in Israel and the USA. They still are not sure exactly where the connection was. Were Adolph and Benjamin Joseph Brodman first cousins or second cousins of the brothers Hirsch and Moshe Brodman. Hopefully time will tell. In the meantime a reunion is planned for early 2017 when Lee Samuels, the grandson of Adolph Brodman is planning a trip to Israel especially to meet his new found family.
*
Preceding provided by Magen David Adom