I Found the Only Existing Childhood Photo of My Dad & the Siblings He Lost in the Holocaust

Ten years ago, I set out on a personal mission — to fulfill my late father’s lifelong wish. He had spent his entire life trying to find something, anything, about the family he lost during the Holocaust. When he passed away in June 2015 without ever finding the answers he sought, I knew I had to continue his search.

Henry Zanzer

My father, Simha (Jan) Zanzer, was born in 1928 in Lutsk, Poland. When war broke out, he escaped the Lutsk ghetto and found shelter in a Czech village. A local family risked their lives to hide him, letting him work on their farm while he lived under a false identity. At 16, he was discovered by the Russians and volunteered to join the Red Army. He served until 1952 and was in Berlin on VE Day — May 8, 1945 — exactly 80 years ago this year.

After the war, he tracked down the Czech family who had saved him and successfully petitioned Yad Vashem to recognize them as Righteous Among the Nations. But despite his determined efforts over the decades, he was never able to find out what happened to the rest of his family.

His one wish was to uncover something of that past — to find relatives, photographs, documents — and I made it my mission to do just that.

Rebuilding the story with my family

I live in Antwerp, Belgium, where I immigrated as a child with my parents. My son Phillippe and my younger brother Alexander, who is now 60, joined me in my search. By combining traditional genealogical research with DNA tools on MyHeritage, we made our first significant breakthrough: we discovered Maury (Maurice) Sancer, an 87-year-old second cousin living in California. His name, and the connection we found through him, opened up an entirely unknown branch of our family in the United States.

Henry’s newfound cousin Maury

Maury’s family revealed that my paternal grandfather had a brother named Benzion Sancer — my great-uncle — who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1921. He eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. I was able to find Benzion’s grave there and connect with the descendants of his daughter Sophia, who are still living in Cleveland today.

A name my father never knew

That discovery on my paternal grandfather’s side was followed by another, about a year later — this time on my paternal grandmother’s side. Through MyHeritage, we found connections to a large extended family in the U.S. with the surname Ziegelbaum. That’s how I discovered something my father never knew during his lifetime: the maiden name of his mother — my grandmother — was Ziegelbaum.

Through this newly discovered branch, I met Mary Steiner Goldstein, the granddaughter of my great-aunt Gussie (Gitel) Ziegelbaum. I asked our new American relatives if they had any old family documents or photographs, and Mary went searching. What she found took my breath away.

The only childhood photo

Mary had come across a dusty, forgotten box — and inside it, a photograph from 1931 or 1932. It showed my father, Simha, as a child, sitting on a wooden horse. Standing next to him were his siblings: Haim Motel on the left, Naftali (Tule) on the right, and their sister Yenta.

Three siblings were murdered in the Holocaust. Simha was the sole survivor.

This was the first and only photograph I had ever seen of my father as a child.

On the back was a handwritten message in Yiddish:

The inscription on the reverse side of the photo

It reads:

“From us, your nephews and niece Tzantzer. Think about us, as we think about you. I am sending this to you, Aunt Gittle, from me, your nephew Haim Motel Tzantzer. I send regards to my aunt and uncle and all the children I’m aware of. Haim Motel Tzantzer.”

Gittle — my grandmother’s sister — had immigrated to the United States in 1913, before World War I. The photo had been sent to her by my father and his siblings. It was signed by Haim Motel, my father’s older brother, who died at age 20 in 1942.

No one in our family had ever seen this photo before.

Hidden connections and unexpected moments

All these discoveries were new not only to me and my immediate family, but also to our American relatives. We started with zero information. We knew nothing. And across the ocean, our newfound cousins had believed the same — that no one had survived the Holocaust, that they had no family left in Europe.

In a strange twist, I also learned that during the 8 years I lived in Dallas, Texas, from 2011 to 2019, the grandson of my second cousin Maury — a car designer — had lived in my neighborhood. We had no idea we were related at the time.

This October, I plan to meet one of my Ziegelbaum second cousins here in Belgium. It will be the first time we connect in person — a living continuation of a family story once thought ended.

From nothing to something

What began with a lifelong wish and no leads has grown into something larger than I ever imagined. Thanks to MyHeritage, and the help of family members we never knew existed, we’ve recovered not just names and records, but real, human connections — faces, stories, and bonds that span continents and decades, while reviving the lost Holocaust generation and reestablishing the family bonds and bloodlines.

This journey has brought light to places long buried in silence. And though my father didn’t live to see these discoveries, they are the legacy of his hope — fulfilled at last.

Many thanks to Henry Zanzer for sharing his incredible story with us. If you have also made an incredible discovery with MyHeritage, we’d love to hear about it! Please send it to us via this form or email it to us at stories@myheritage.com.