Today, on #YomHaShaoh, the story of just one branch of my family:
My great aunt, Sora Yashvin and her - my - entire family was murdered in the Ponary massacre just outside of Vilnius. All her children, all their spouses, all her grandchildren. 1/x

Only three survived: a son-in-law, Yehuda, and two grandsons, Dov Ber, and Moses. Moses, went looking for his mother and sister. Both had already been murdered, but, in looking, he ended up thrown in Russian jail. 2/x

By the time he got out, he was trapped in the terribly antisemitic Soviet Union. The family finally got out decades later, and I'm happy to say I'm in touch with them now, after having found them only a few years ago. 3/x

Yehuda and Dov migrated to Israel. Decades later, Yehuda died in Dov's arms. Dov's grandmother Sora was my great-aunt. Sora's brother, my great-grandfather, Isaac, reported her murder to Yad Vashem. He had migrated to America in 1903. He never told his family what he knew. 4/x

Only in the last two years have I found my long-lost, Jewish family scattered around the world - and found the stories of our more than 40 relatives murdered in the Shoah. Most of us thought we'd lost no-one because those who knew kept the truth from us. Now we know. #YomHaShaoh

This is my grandpa Isaac, who took the story of our family in the Holocaust to his grave, to protect our innocence, to protect us from that grief and horror. This is his signature on just one form reporting the murders. This is Ponary, where his sister was murdered. #YomHaShaoh