Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman broke down in tears while learning about his great-grandmother, who escaped a Russian concentration camp.
During the filming of US TV programme “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates” Mr Hoffman found out the truth his atheist father had hidden about his great-grandmother Libba.
She was 53 when she was incarcerated in a Soviet camp, but managed to escape, first to Argentina and then to the US.
During the programme the Rainman actor learned about Libba’s condition when she arrived in America, which included senility, an artificial limb and poor vision.
“Wow,” he said. “Why did (my father) want to erase all this? She was a hero.”
He also found out that his paternal grandfather Frank Hoffman went back to Russia to attempt to save his parents Sam and Libba from the authorities, but was captured and disappeared forever.
And Mr Hoffman admitted that his father had been in a difficult position, saying: “This is terrible stuff. This is not good stuff to report.
“And who knows, my father could’ve been crying, grabbing his father’s leg, saying: ‘Please don’t go.’ My poor dad.”
Mr Hoffman teared up when considering the sacrifices his ancestors had made for him. “People ask me today, what are you? I say: ‘I’m a Jew.’
“That was the thought that went through my head (when I was reading these papers). Forcefully. For these people who survived. I’m a Jew – they all survived for me to be here.”
8 thoughts on “Dustin Hoffman: 'People ask me today, what are you? I say: ‘I’m a Jew.’'”
Sigh. Nothing new to report here, just another tool in the arsenal.
Dustin has an audience that has spanned many many decades. Amazing he discovers this out only NOW!
Spielberg and he will probably make a movie….. rolls eyes. After all, “Sophie’s Choice” is a tad stale by now….
Forgive me, I sound so… so… so… jaded….. Wonder why…. We never questioned his Jewishness, he has the schnozz. His first major role was about a boy and a mature woman and had the typical judaic schlockstoryline to introduce him to gentile society.
Ah yes. Never an Italian from Italy, a German from Germany, a Pole from Poland, etc…
But,…a Jew! A tribe that has a unique ‘religion’ {mindset} where one worships themselves.
The pure definition of ethnocentrism…….
Worse is being done, right now, to Palestinians by JEWS than anything Hoffman’s grandmother went through. But it’s always: Jooz lives mattah (mo)!
Oy.
Not an American but a Jew …. all i need to know.
By the way Dustin stop overacting as its annoying – pity Szell “Weißer Engel” didn’t get you!
So Hoffman’s family victims had nothing to do with the “Nazis”– they went through the Soviet prison/camp system that Jews were running and where untold millions of non-Jews perished but the suffering of Hoffman’s relatives is … “Jewish” and therefore unique. They were probably there by mistake since Solzhenitsyn encountered very few Jews –rare as hen’s teeth– in the gulag. But oy, this makes Hoffamn feel he is a Jew…
Hmmm
His response is typical: As noted already he does not respond that he is an American, merely a Jew. And there are thousands like him in high places through our government making decisions, not as Americans, for America and Americans, But as Jews making decisions for Jews and Israel. He sums up what is destroying America in one short sentence.
What Dustin forgot to say – perhaps he doesn’t know – is that 11 of the 12 death camps in Siberia were run by jews, with a jew (I believe, Berman) being the over-lord of them all. An inconvenient truth, and little known.
Sigh. Nothing new to report here, just another tool in the arsenal.
Dustin has an audience that has spanned many many decades. Amazing he discovers this out only NOW!
Spielberg and he will probably make a movie….. rolls eyes. After all, “Sophie’s Choice” is a tad stale by now….
Forgive me, I sound so… so… so… jaded….. Wonder why…. We never questioned his Jewishness, he has the schnozz. His first major role was about a boy and a mature woman and had the typical judaic schlockstoryline to introduce him to gentile society.
Ah yes. Never an Italian from Italy, a German from Germany, a Pole from Poland, etc…
But,…a Jew! A tribe that has a unique ‘religion’ {mindset} where one worships themselves.
The pure definition of ethnocentrism…….
Worse is being done, right now, to Palestinians by JEWS than anything Hoffman’s grandmother went through. But it’s always: Jooz lives mattah (mo)!
Oy.
Not an American but a Jew …. all i need to know.
By the way Dustin stop overacting as its annoying – pity Szell “Weißer Engel” didn’t get you!
So Hoffman’s family victims had nothing to do with the “Nazis”– they went through the Soviet prison/camp system that Jews were running and where untold millions of non-Jews perished but the suffering of Hoffman’s relatives is … “Jewish” and therefore unique. They were probably there by mistake since Solzhenitsyn encountered very few Jews –rare as hen’s teeth– in the gulag. But oy, this makes Hoffamn feel he is a Jew…
Hmmm
His response is typical: As noted already he does not respond that he is an American, merely a Jew. And there are thousands like him in high places through our government making decisions, not as Americans, for America and Americans, But as Jews making decisions for Jews and Israel. He sums up what is destroying America in one short sentence.
What Dustin forgot to say – perhaps he doesn’t know – is that 11 of the 12 death camps in Siberia were run by jews, with a jew (I believe, Berman) being the over-lord of them all. An inconvenient truth, and little known.