Cousins Separated by The Holocaust, Finally Reunited

Lemel Leo Adler last saw his cousin Leon Schagrin in 1944, at Buna. They would go nearly 70 years without seeing each other again. Everyone else in their family was killed in the Holocaust, and they thought each other amongst the dead.

Then in February a friend gave Adler a copy of another survivor’s memoir, The Horse Adjutant: A Boy's Life in the Holocaust. She figured he would be interested because the author, Leon Schagrin, hailed from a town in Poland close to Adler’s native Tarnow. "Why do I need to read that? I lived it." thought Adler.

But once he started reading it he recognized not just places but names and even events. Adler called the author and opened with a simple announcement, "I know you." "You know how it is when nerves are tickling all over your body? I couldn't believe it after 70 years," Schagrin told the Orlando Sentinel.

Ironically the two live not far from each other in the same county in Florida. They've spent the past couple weeks talking daily on the phone. On Sunday they were able to meet at a luncheon sponsored by Holocaust Survivors of South Florida, which Shargin helped found.