{"id":37713,"date":"2016-03-16T18:05:46","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T16:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=37713"},"modified":"2016-03-11T08:20:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T06:20:09","slug":"16-05-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=37713","title":{"rendered":"Dustin Hoffman Weeps After Discovering Great-Grandmother Escaped Soviet Concentration Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Dustin Hoffman Weeps After Discovering Great-Grandmother Escaped Soviet Concentration Camp<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Actor<\/p>\n

Famed actor Dustin Hoffman was reduced to tears on Tuesday after learning that his great-grandmother had escaped a Soviet concentration camp before starting a life for herself in America, People magazine reported.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning star, who is Jewish, found out about his great-grandmother, Libba, on the season finale of Finding Your Roots, a PBS show in which celebrities scour ancestral records to learn about their family\u2019s history. The show revealed that Libba had been taken from her home in Ukraine to a Russian camp when the Bolsheviks targeted Jews after the outbreak of the Russian civil war in 1917. She was 53 when she entered the camp, where she remained for five years. Both her husband and son were killed by the Soviet state security force, the Cheka.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with many other Jews fleeing Eastern Europe, she made her way to Argentina, and ultimately to America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at his great-grandmother\u2019s medical records from Ellis Island, Hoffman, 78, discovered that Libba had entered the US in 1930 at age 62. The records show that her left arm had been amputated, she suffered from poor vision and was described as senile. Libba settled with family in Chicago, where she remained until she died in 1944 at the age of 76.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday night\u2019s episode also highlighted Hoffman\u2019s Jewish heritage, which his parents kept a secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a hero,\u201d Hoffman said of his great-grandmother, as tears streamed down his face. \u201cPeople ask me today: \u2018What are you?\u2019 I say, \u2018I\u2019m a Jew\u2026\u2019 I\u2019m a Jew. They all survived for me to be here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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