Brothers Reunited After 56 Years

David and Izzy Huss's mother and two of their three sisters were killed by the Nazis, but the brother's escaped the Holocaust, only to become separated. They haven't seen one another for 56 years.

As CBS News Correspondent David Hawkins reports, the brothers were re-united this past week in Israel.

Now 76, David Huss flew to Tel Aviv from Skokie, Illinois. Izzy, who has since changed his name to Yuri Husew, arrived from Moscow. He's 74. His grand-daughter immigrated to Israel six years ago.

"My younger brother... and I was holding him and just crying. I couldn't say nothing. I was crying," David Huss said.

The two brothers became separated when, after the Second World War, David decided to leave the Soviet Union, where the surviving members of the family had fled from Poland. Izzy stayed behind. He was 17 and in love with a local girl.

"If such a girl loves you and you love her, you don't need anything else," Izzy Huss said.

"I told him not to get married. 'You are in a strange land and the best thing is to go, together, to leave.' I tried to convince him, (saying) he should pick up and let's go all together," David Huss recalled saying.

Izzy stayed behind in Russia. David began a long journey to America, during which his only link to Izzy — a small slip of paper with his brother's address — was destroyed.

"We walked about 15 miles on foot. That piece of paper became nothing. The address was never remembered, and that's why we lost touch," said David Huss.

For 56 years David searched for his brother, but Izzy had moved and changed his name, making him impossible to find. The two were reconnected when Izzy's granddaughter's husband found the names of relatives at the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. He discovered that David was alive in America.

The brothers spoke on the phone and arranged to meet.

"It's ironic and very sad. Of course, it would have been much better if we would have found each other 30 years ago. We were much younger. Now we're two old people," David Huss said.

Two brothers are together again after so many years, the only two surviving members of a family of nine...perhaps. One of their younger sisters, Kronche, is still unaccounted for, rumored to be living in Germany. They aren't going to give up looking.

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