Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 11, 2024

Lena Dunham made the emotional discovery that her family has connections to the Holocaust during last weeks episode of the PBS celebrity genealogy series Finding Your Roots.

Historian and host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed that Dunhams great-great-grandmother Regina Seltenwirth came to the US alone at just 14 years old, leaving 11 siblings behind in Europe. Gates explained that one of Reginas brothers, Moses, moved with his family to Hungary around the time that WWII began; the family was separated, and his daughter Ilona was sent to the Nazi-occupied city of Kamianets-Podilskyi where she is believed to have been one of roughly 24,000 Jews who were massacred over the course of two days in August 1941.

Its an incredibly painful thing to think about people with whom I share probably not just DNA but, you know, features and emotional responses and an approach to life those people being placed in this situation and having their lives extinguished this way, Dunham said. I dont think there is a way to reckon with it. Its too big and the whole act is too vast. But to see a personal connection to it literalises it in a way that is very, very powerful.

Dunham, 37, whose mother is Jewish, stars in the upcoming film Treasure in which she plays a young woman confronting her familys Holocaust history, and her discovery on Finding Your Rootsproved the Jewish actor and writer of the hit HBO series Girlshas more in common with her character than shed previously known.

Gates went on to explain that the names of Moses, his wife and their son later appeared on a list of living Hungarian Jews compiled by Allied soldiers at the end of the war, and Ilona's name was notably missing.

Its an amazing thing to see those names, and to know that theyre a part of our family, Dunham said. But to also know that they had to spend the rest of their lives with this other person who was so important to them missing, and wondering about her fate, must have made surviving a very complicated thing.

Dunham, who appeared on last Tuesdays episode alongside Jewish actor Michael Douglas, also learned that she is a distant relative of Curb Your Enthusiasmstar Larry David. Gates explained that David is a cousin through Dunhams mother, Laurie Simmons. According to the shows DNA analysis, David shares multiple long identical segments of DNA with Dunham and her mother.

This means that you share at least one common ancestor somewhere on your mother's side of your family tree, Gates added.

Dunham was delighted by the news: This is incredible. You saved the best for last.

Finding Your Rootshas featured a number of Jewish celebrities who explored previously unknown Jewish family histories, including Alanis Morissette, Pamela Adlon, David Duchovny, Dustin Hoffman and others.

Read more:

Lena Dunham finds out her family's Holocaust history - The Jewish Chronicle

Category: Holocaust
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