Tearful Andrew Garfield honours family members believed to have died in Holocaust, Entertainment News

AsiaOne

24-04-2025

Andrew Garfield broke down in tears as he honoured his family members believed to have perished in the Holocaust.
The 41-year-old actor delved into his family history for an episode of genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? and he traced his roots back to Poland, revealing his Jewish great-grandfather Ludwig Garfinkel managed to flee to London in 1910, but three of Ludwig's sisters stayed behind and are believed to have been murdered at Nazi death camp Treblinka.
Andrew visited the site of Treblinka and wept as he placed three stones on a memorial dedicated to all those from the family's hometown of Kielce who were killed at the camp.
He explained: "This is a memorial stone for the Jews from Kielce that met their ultimate fate here in Treblinka, which my great-grandfather's three sisters, we imagine, had to have been murdered.
"Szajndia, Dworja, Basia. Their lives were deemed so valueless and the Nazis attempted to erase even the memory of them, even their names, even any record of them.
"And they had succeeded in certain ways. They were just normal girls, they were just normal women who just wanted a life, they wanted to live, to thrive, but this journey that we've been on has recovered my memory of them and my family's memory of them and I'm grateful for that.
"I wish I had known you better, I wish you peace."
The episode also followed Andrew's great-great-grandmother Chaja, who escaped the Holocaust by moving to Brazil in 1936 to join her daughter Ruchla.
It was revealed that Ruchla's husband was the cousin of Władysław Szpilman, the Jewish musician whose story was told in Oscar-winning movie The Pianist starring Adrian Brody.
It comes after Andrew recently admitted he now feels an urgent need to live life as "fully" as possible.
He told Variety: "I've been initiated recently into a new visceral understanding of how f****** short this visit is on this planet, in this body. And I feel this crazy new urgency."
Andrew's entire outlook on life has shifted in recent years, with the actor explaining that he now wants to do things that "speak to [his] soul".
He added: "I only want to do the things that speak to my soul. Culturally, right now, there's so much numbness and lack of awareness of how life matters and that we all have a soul."
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