Two identical twins. One was raised Jewish, the other became a Nazi

By: Yanan Wang, The Washington Post:

Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times/TNS. Jack Yufe, left, and his twin brother, Oskar Stohr, in 1979. They were raised apart and in later years developed a "love-hate relationship," according to Yufe's wife. Stohr died in 1997; Yufe died this week, age 82. 
   

   Jack Yufe grew up missing his other half, an identical twin brother from whom he had been separated at 6 months.

   For years, they exchanged letters and photographs. Then, at age 21, they met at a German train station. The encounter was detailed in psychologist Nancy Segal’s book Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins.

   Yufe and his brother, Oskar Stohr, examined one another as if they were looking at alien specimens, though no likeness could have been more familiar to either of them. Their cultural differences were as immediately apparent as their physical similarities. Casting a wary eye at Yufe’s Israeli luggage tags, Stohr removed them and told his long-lost brother to tell others he was coming from America.

From this first uneasy exchange in 1954 grew a complex but enduring bond that would bring Yufe and Stohr to the centre of discussions about nature and nurture. After all, the differences between the brothers’ upbringings were more extreme than those experienced by most twins separated by circumstance.

   Yufe grew up Jewish in Trinidad and became an officer in the Israeli navy. Stohr grew up Catholic in Nazi Germany and became an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.

   Yufe died on Monday of cancer in a San Diego hospital, The Associated Press reports. He was 82.

   Stohr passed away in 1997, also of cancer...Continue reading...