Incredible Shoah Story

Originally published 12/23/07, 2:00 PM, Eastern Daylight Time.
Someone recently wrote me with the following story, asking me for the Halachic response. I thought I would throw it out to the blog to see what others may say as well.

A very close friend of one of my dearest friends recently went to a wedding in New Jersey. A Jewish wedding. Before the ceremony both families were on the stage or bima. The parents of both children had met before, although I'm not sure how many times, but the grandparents, who are all alive and in their 80's, had never met before. The grandfather of one of the children getting married who had been looking and looking at the grandmother of the other child, finally says to her, "you were my wife". There was silence and he says again, "you were my wife". After talking to each other they confirmed that they indeed were married. They were married very young in Eastern Europe, had no children and were taken by the Nazis and put into concentration camps where they were separated. Both looked for each other after WW2 ended, but each thought the other was dead. Since all of their relatives had been killed, they had no one to check with and records were terrible. Sixty plus years later after they had moved to the United States and had families of their own, there they were, sitting on a stage watching the grandchildren of their new families getting married to each other and once again becoming family.

I will present my thoughts on this case in a later comment.

Rabbi Ben Hecht