$40M Estate of Holocaust Survivor & Staten Island Developer Still Unresolved
By: Serach Nissim
Roman Blum, a Holocaust survivor and Staten Island developer passed away in 2012, at age 97, leaving behind an estate of roughly $40 billion. He did not leave a last and testament, and today, a decade later, his estate is still wavering, with would-be heirs awaiting a court decision.
As reported by the NY Post, in the meantime, the value of the fortune is dwindling before their eyes. “I can say there’s about half of it left, probably,” said Richmond County Public Administrator Edwina Frances Martin, whose office oversees the estate. Blum had amassed a pretty penny in Staten Island real estate, by building and selling homes in the borough when the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was built. Since Blum was a Holocaust survivor, he didn’t have much family to start with and then he passed away without leaving behind a wife or having children. For the last 10 years, there has been a court battle ensuing between potential heirs, while in the interim the value of the estate has been rapidly diminishing due to attorney fees and taxes.
“Right now there are two parties who are claiming a right to Mr. Blum’s estate and it’s playing out in court,” said Martin. In January, the latest potential heir, Moscow resident Maxim Shimnyuk, 44, joined the bid, saying he is Blum’s great-grandson, court records show. As per the Post, the legal filing maintains that Blum had been married before immigrating to the United States, in Poland to Ester Lajzerevna. The couple reportedly had a daughter in 1937 named Hanna, as per court documents filed by Shimnyuk. Hannah had a daughter–Tatyana, who was born in 1954 and who gave birth to Shimnyuk in 1977. Hannah and Tatyana are no longer living, and Shimnyuk’s legal claim says he “is the only lineal descendant … of Roman Blum, and would therefore be the only person entitled to inherit from the estate,” according to a genealogy report filed in Staten Island Surrogate Court.
A previously filed competing claim states that Blum had died childless, but had a long-lost love in Warsaw, to whom he left everything in a secret will. The opposing filing claims that in 1938 at the age of 26, before World War II, Blum met Helen Pietrucha, 20. The pair fell and love and planned to be married but the war came along and the couple was forced into hiding. The couple never wed, Pietrucha and her family were sent to Siberia in 1940. Roman was sent to concentration camps in Poland, where he endured the grip of Nazi cruelty for five years, finally to be freed in 1945. After the war, Blum could not locate Pietrucha or determine her fate, so he married another woman and moved to New York. He later separated from his wife, who died in 1992. The couple did not have children.
The story says that Blum finally did find Pietrucha years later, but she had married another man. The legal claim says that in his final letter to Pietrucha, Blum allegedly included a will, which stated, “I give all my estate after my death to my beloved Helen Pietrucha.” The alleged secret will, which has not been filed in the Staten Island court, was said to be signed in 1987 by two witnesses who have since passed away. Pietrucha died in 1999 at age 79. Her longtime friend and caregiver Teresa Musial, who inherited the childless widow’s estate is contesting that she should inherit Blum’s estate, because she says it should have belonged to Pietrucha.
