When he died in 2012 at age 97, a Staten Island real-estate magnate already rich in secrets left behind a final, tantalizing mystery: who should inherit his $40 million fortune.
Holocaust survivor Roman Blum left behind no family and no will — and the largest unclaimed estate in New York history.
The Polish native's wealth would eventually land in government coffers, unless someone stepped forward to claim it.
That happened last week, when an elderly woman in Poland emerged with a fascinating story told to her by her friend — a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers separated during the fog of war but whose devotion to each other lingered until the end of their lives.
Blum, then 26, first met Helen Pietrucha in 1938 in Warsaw. The 20-year-old woman with the bright smile and Blum fell in love and planned to wed.
But war soon sent the couple fleeing across the River Bug to her family's farm.
Safety was short-lived. Seized by the Russians, the Pietrucha family was deported to Siberia one cruel night in February 1940, though Helen managed to hide Roman in a dugout before they parted.
"In my eyes I have a picture of that horrible night when you were taken to Siberia. In my eyes I have a picture of that last loaf of bread you managed to give me," Blum wrote to her, years later.
Helen was pregnant but miscarried during the brutal journey to the gulag.
"She used to tell me about her life in Siberia in the frost without food. She would tell me about the people who had died of hunger and exhaustion," wrote Helen's friend, Teresa Musial, who became her caregiver and most trusted confidante until Helen's death in 1999.
Roman spent five years in labor camps in Poland and Germany before freedom came in 1945. The fate of Helen unknown, he married another woman, eventually moving to New York.
Blum was a pioneer in Staten Island real estate, building and selling homes in the borough shortly after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was built. His marriage didn't last, and his ex-wife died years ago.
Roman finally found his long-lost love, but it was too late; by the late 1970s, Helen, having lost hope for a reunion, moved to Australia, married a man she met there, and returned with him to Poland.
"Over all those years I had a goal to find you and when it happened I saw a great grief and pain in your eyes," Blum wrote in a heartbreaking letter to Helen in 1987. "I shall respect your pain and grief and I shall never write to you again."
With that last missive, Blum included a will, which stated simply, "I give all my estate after my death to my beloved Helen Pietrucha."
"Dear Helen, with this last will I will make all the suffering and pain up to you after the loss of our child and for what that war made to us tearing us apart," according to the two paragraphs he typed.
Helen died in 1999 at the age of 79, a widow without children. She named Musial, now 63, the beneficiary of her estate.
But Blum apparently never told anyone in New York about the alleged will, or filed it in Staten Island court. Two witnesses listed on the 1987 will have died.
The Staten Island public administrator has found nothing after an 18-month search for the rightful heirs.
"I received over 400 e-mails from around the world, people claiming to be heirs," Public Administrator Gary Gotlin said.
"This man at 97 years old would have 40 daughters and 25 sons. I don't think those people were telling the truth."
Last week, Musial filed in Staten Island Surrogate's Court the will Blum sent to Helen, including her own letter recalling Helen's stories of Roman, and Blum's heartfelt 1987 missive. She realized who Blum was after reading news coverage in Poland of his death.
Now it's up to the court to determine who gets Blum's millions, in a case Gotlin called "the most interesting case I ever had."
Former Congressman Vito Fossella, who is consulting with Musial's lawyers, marveled that the love story of Blum and Pietrucha survived the devastation of World War II and the Holocaust.
"It was just a horrible situation," he said.
Blum never gave up on his lost love.
"When I will be leaving this world, till the last moment I will be waiting for a sign from you that you have received my letter and my last will," he wrote. "Now that you are living in Poland, please go to Warsaw and visit these places where we used to be so happy."
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