They $40 million property of Holocaust survivor and Staten Island developer Roman Blum, who died in 2012, continues to be being disputed amongst potential heirs ten years on from his loss of life
A decade-long seek for the kinfolk of Holocaust survivor Roman Blum – who handed away in January 2012 continues to be persevering with, however his $40 million property, which was the most important unclaimed property in New York historical past, is slowly dwindling with the case but to be resolved.
With no obvious surviving members of the family – his spouse died 31-years in the past and the couple was childless – the 97-year-old property mogul’s property was taken on by the state after he handed with no will.
Nonetheless a descendent of certainly one of his lengthy misplaced loves has since come ahead to say Blum wrote a ‘secret will’ regardless of it by no means being formally filed. The validity of such a doc is at the moment being performed out in court docket.
Both manner, the $40 million greenback fortune is slowly being whittled down by taxes and legal professional charges whereas would-be heirs are nonetheless trying to say for his or her share.
‘I can say there’s about half of it left, in all probability. Proper now there are two events who’re claiming a proper to Mr. Blum’s property and it is taking part in out in court docket,’ mentioned Richmond County Public Administrator Edwina Frances Martin to the New York Submit.
On the time of his loss of life in 2013, Blum’s property additionally included about $4 million in money in his checking account.
His dwelling in Staten Island was value $729,000 – undeveloped land in Forest Avenue value $4.5 million and a secure deposit field containing 7,000 in $100 payments.
Buddies have instructed New York Occasions that they have no idea why he failed to put in writing a will.
Roman Blum’s dwelling in Staten Island was modest for a person who amassed a fortune of virtually $40 million over the course of his 97-years
Some declare that it was a refusal to confess his mortality whereas others feared it was merely a refusal to share the total particulars of his property with a lawyer.
Any kinfolk nonetheless residing would have acquired the cash by now – regardless of the absence of a will.
One potential inheritor is 44-year-old Moscow resident, Maxim Shimnyuk, who claims to be Blum’s great-grandson.
Courtroom paperwork try to make the hyperlink between Shimnyuk and Blum however it date again to wartime.
Earlier than he immigrated to America, Blum married Ester Lajzerevna in Poland. The couple had a daughter, Hannah, in 1937.
Hannah’s daughter, Tatyana, born in 1954 and gave start to Shimnyuk in October 1977, the authorized papers declare.
However Hannah died in 2001 on the age of 64 whereas Tatyana handed away in 2011 at 57.
Shimnyuk claims he ‘is the one lineal descendant … of Roman Blum, and would due to this fact be the one particular person entitled to inherit from the property,’ in response to a family tree report filed in Staten Island Surrogate Courtroom.
However a second hyperlink additionally exists and entails a ‘secret will’ through which a long-lost love of Blum’s was bequeathed every part.
Blum was mentioned to have met 20-year-old Helen Pietrucha in 1938, in Poland, when he was 26.
Little is understood about Blum’s life earlier than the Holocaust and the tip of the Second World Conflict. Pictured, younger Jewish males being carted off within the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941
It was one 12 months earlier than the Nazis invaded with the couple’s plan to marry halted by the beginning of World Conflict II.
They hid on her household’s farm however finally the Russian’s deported Pietrucha and her household to Siberia in February 1940.
Pietrucha hid Roman in a dugout earlier than the couple had been pulled aside.
‘In my eyes, I’ve an image of that horrible night time whenever you had been taken to Siberia. In my eyes I’ve an image of that final loaf of bread you managed to offer me,’ Blum wrote to her a few years later.
Roman later spent 5 years in focus camps in Poland and Germany earlier than he was freed in 1945.
He was by no means capable of decide till a few years later, by which period she had married one other man.
Blum additionally married one other lady in New York however they by no means had youngsters,
The Varrazano Narrows Bridge, from Brooklyn to Staten Island – opened up new enterprise alternatives for Roman Blum
In his remaining letter to Pietrucha, Blum allegedly included a will, which said, ‘I give all my property after my loss of life to my beloved Helen Pietrucha.’
However the secret will Blum was by no means filed in Staten Island, and the one two witnesses who signed the doc in 1987 have handed away.
Pietrucha too, died in 1999 on the age of 79.
The love story is instructed by Pietrucha’s longtime pal and caregiver Teresa Musial inherited her property following her loss of life. She additionally believes she has a proper to say Blum’s riches.
Blum’s spouse, who died in 1992 would additionally not have been eligible – so the hope had been to discover a blood relative again in Poland – as all makes an attempt within the U.S. have failed.
Buddies who knew him described Blum as a gregarious girls man, who preferred to drink and occasion and who constructed up one of the vital distinguished actual property empires within the New York borough of Staten Island by a long time of exhausting work.
Nonetheless, regardless of his enterprise acumen and the lease of life surviving the Holocaust gave him, Blum has been described in no unsure phrases by one pal who additionally made it by the focus camps of the Nineteen Forties.
‘He was a really good man however he died like an fool,’ mentioned Paul Skurka, who grew to become pals with Blum within the Seventies after working for him at certainly one of his properties.
The millionaire’s 2013 funeral was attended by solely a small variety of aged pals who knew one another from their days as a group of Holocaust survivors in Forest Hills, Queens.
When requested by the New York Occasions, these pals might solely paint an image of the person they knew from when he managed to achieve a visa and enter the USA in 1949.
Little is understood about his life earlier than even the Holocaust and the tip of the Second World Conflict.
Born in Chelm, within the south of Poland, some speculate that Blum had a spouse and little one who died within the focus camps, however even his start date is questionable.
An identification card from a displaced individuals camp on the finish of the struggle has his birthday as September 15, 1914 – whereas his U.S. birth-date is registered as September 16, 1914,
No matter what appears an inconsequential date error, the actual thriller is why Blum, an clever man, supplied no will for his huge fortune.
‘I spoke to Roman many occasions earlier than he handed away, and he knew what to do, how you can title beneficiaries,’ mentioned Mason D. Corn, his accountant and pal for 30 years to the New York Occasions.
It appears that evidently solely two weeks earlier than his loss of life, Blum supposed to supply a will, however died earlier than he might – as Corn went on trip and his shopper handed away.
Leaving the focus camps behind after the struggle in 1945, Blum encountered a household of fellow survivors who had two daughters.
One, named Eva, had been within the infamous Auschwitz focus camp.
Roman married the woman, however pals mentioned that sadly it was not a marriage primarily based on love.
‘It was instantly after the struggle — he thought she was the final Jewish lady alive, and she or he thought there have been no extra males,’ mentioned a pal to the New York Occasions.
Intriguingly, this pal spoke to the newspaper on the situation of anonymity in case it appeared that they had been attempting to stake a declare to the Blum property.
This similar pal revealed that in 1946, Blum and his spouse traveled to a camp on the outskirts of Frankfurt the place he grew to become a cigarette smuggler – displaying off the beginnings of his aptitude for enterprise.
His uncommon marriage grew to become obvious when Blum decamped to west Berlin to stay the excessive life – whereas Eva remained outdoors Frankfurt.
Granted their visas in 1949, the pair moved to Forest Hills, the place they grew to become a part of a tightknit group of fellow survivors – many who had identified the Blums from Germany.
‘All of them lived the identical kind of way of life, going to the bungalow colonies collectively, the Catskills, every part was executed as a gaggle,’ mentioned Jack Shnay, a toddler of survivors to the Occasions.
Charles Goldgrub, whose mother and father grew up with the Blums described the joyous way of life led by the Jews who had escaped Hitler’s focus camp.
‘Each weekend was a celebration,’ mentioned Goldgrub. ‘That they had survived Hitler so that they thought they might stay perpetually.’
Growing his home-building enterprise, Blum grew to become profitable, residing a lifetime of exuberance likened to that of the Italian organized crime households.
‘There have been a lot of girls on the aspect,’ defined Goldgrub. ‘It was a lifestyle, everybody knew — the wives simply closed their eyes to it.’
As a backdrop to this, the Blum’s failed to begin their very own household – spending tens of hundreds of {dollars} on medical payments.
A hurtful rumor even circulated that Eva had been rendered infertile bu the inhuman experiments of Josef Mengele whereas at Auschwitz.
Certainly, on a five-week cruise to Israel within the Nineteen Sixties aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner, Blum discovered a boy he wished to undertake.
His spouse declined, hoping that she would have the ability to conceive naturally.
Upon the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which hyperlinks Brooklyn and Staten Island – Blum’s property enterprise exploded as he purchased up low-cost property in neighborhoods like Eltingville, Huguenot and Manor Heights.
His marriage once more fell right into a state of flux when he moved to his giant however modest brick home in Staten Island, leaving his spouse of over forty years behind in Queens.
‘He wished her to go stay with him in his massive home with a swimming pool, however she cherished town,’ mentioned the pal who wished to be unidentified.
‘All her pals had been there, and along with his way of life, if she went with him, she knew she can be alone quite a bit.’ Eva Blum stayed in Queens whereas Blum moved into the brand new home.
Divorcing some time later, Blum once more returned to the lifetime of a bachelor with Sunday barbecues changing into the most well liked ticket amongst his circle of pals.
Nonetheless, the way in which through which he handled his spouse brought on a riff within the Jewish group and folks took sides.
Changing into more and more suspicious that individuals had been attempting to steal his cash, Blum as soon as hid $40,000 in his ceiling.
When it went lacking, he falsely {accused} a neighbor of stealing it.
An unidentified pal continues to be filled with hope although that finally an inheritor will likely be discovered.
‘I imagine a will is written,’ the pal mentioned.
‘Someplace there’s a plan: he made preparations to make use of the cash to construct a house for kids and to dedicate it to his little one from earlier than the struggle. I’m positive of it.’
