December 2016

Who Am I? What is My Name? – Part XII – Taking Stock

By |2023-01-10T21:08:41-08:00December 8th, 2016|

INTRODUCTION As with all research projects, there have been so many zigzags in this story, it's only reasonable to take a break to take stock of where we are in solving the puzzle of Pnina's identity. We haven't solved all the mysteries yet, but we know so much more now than we started with a few years ago. Pnina Gutman is in her 70s and lives in Israel. She leads a normal life as a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, but she has an unusual story. Pnina was smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto in late 1942 when she was an infant and hidden on the Aryan side by Charlotte [...]

November 2016

For Immediate Release – Grant from the Elie Wiesel Jewish Studies Center, Boston University

By |2016-11-07T16:42:13-08:00November 7th, 2016|

The Center for Professional Education at Boston University has been awarded a competitive grant from Jewish Cultural Endowment Fund of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies to hold a one-day workshop "Holocaust Survival and Reunion Stories:  Separating Fact from Fiction Using Genealogical Research Techniques". The workshop will be conducted by internationally recognized forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick, PhD, founder of Identifinders International.  Dr. Fitzpatrick will focus on stories of child survivors and their efforts to connect with their birth families, covering five topics:  Introduction to Holocaust Research Discerning the True from the False when the Impossible is the Norm The Mascot - A Holocaust Literary Fraud? Holocaust Archives and Repositories Who Am I?  What [...]

May 2014

DNA Pilot Study on Missing Identity Holocaust Children – 2013 IAJGS Conference

By |2014-05-09T20:13:58-07:00May 9th, 2014|

In August 2012, I was invited to give a lecture at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in Boston, MA, on our pilot project to identify two missing-identity child survivors of the Holocaust.  Please enjoy the video of my talk that describes our progress as of late 2013.   We have come some ways since and continue to work towards solving the mystery of their identities. http://youtu.be/Tm9RMfsi864

October 2013

Who Am I? What is My Name? Part IV – Wolfgang and Adele’s Eyewitness Account

By |2022-07-06T01:24:59-07:00October 26th, 2013|

Margarete & Emil Schoessow Family (c 1922). Left to right: Erna, Herbert, Margarete (mother), Margarete (daughter), Charlotte. Emil was killed in 1917 during World War I. Charlotte Schössow Rebhun was the oldest of four children of Emil and Margarete Schössow from Berlin.  Charlotte, like her friend Gertrude Spiro, was a Christian woman who had married a Jew.  Charlotte's husband Max Rebhun had moved from Poland to Germany and settled in Berlin, probably right after WWI.  Max was arrested on Kristalnacht in 1938, and sent to Poland. His wife Charlotte followed him in 1939 with their two children Wolfgang and Adele, where, after the outbreak of the War, the family lived in the Warsaw Ghetto. On August 20, 1942, [...]

September 2012

"The Mascot" – Truth or Fiction

By |2012-09-15T16:07:54-07:00September 15th, 2012|

The Mascot is the international best-selling Holocaust biography of Alex Kurzem...After an exhaustive international three-year search for evidence, my colleague Dr. Barry Resnick and I have discovered no proof that Mr. Kurzem’s story is true, nor has it been established that he is Jewish.

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