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Mila Kunis lost family in the Holocaust

Written by . Published: May 05 2012

Actress Mila Kunis carries a haunting family secret - she lost relatives in the Holocaust.


The Black Swan star was born in the Ukraine and moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was a child.


Kunis, 28, has now revealed her family was torn apart by the genocide in Europe during World War II and she grew up living in fear of persecution as she was forced to hide her Jewish ancestry during her early years in the country, which borders Russia.


She tells Britain's The Sun, "My whole family was in the Holocaust. My grandparents passed and not many survived. After the Holocaust, in Russia you were not allowed to be religious. So my parents raised me to know I was Jewish. You know who you are inside... When I was in school you would still see anti-Semitic signs.


"One of my friends who grew up in Russia, she was in second grade. She came home one day crying. Her mother asked why and she said on the back of her seat there was a swastika. This is a country that obviously does not want you."


Kunis was seven years old when her family emigrated to America, but she was devastated by the move as she struggled to fit in, adding, "I cried every day. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the people."

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