$40 million no heirs: The state of New York could get $40 million after a wealthy New York real estate developer died and had no relatives or a will.
Roman Blum, a Holocaust survivor, died in January 2012 at the age of 97 but authorities have not been able to find any living relatives. His funeral was attended by a small number of mourners, most of them survivors of the Holocaust or their children.
And after several years, there has been no progress in terms of his estate planning, reported The New York Times.
“He was a very smart man but he died like an idiot,” said Paul Skurka, also a Holocaust survivor, told the Times. He made friends with Blum when they did carpentry work in the 1970s.
His jewelry was auctioned off, his Staten Island home was sold, and his furniture and other properties are on the market.
“I spoke to Roman many times before he passed away, and he knew what to do, how to name beneficiaries,” Mason D. Corn, his friend and accountant for 30 years, told the Times.
He added: “Two weeks before he died, I had finally gotten him to sit down. He saw the end was coming. He was becoming mentally feeble. We agreed. I had to go away, and so he told me, ‘O.K., when you come back I will do it.’ But by then it was too late. We came this close, but we missed the boat.”
The Times points out that details of his life were scant and his life before World War II and the Holocaust is not known, even his birth date.
Blum moved to Forest Hills in 1949, where he and his wife met a group of other Holocaust survivors.
But later in his life, he made his fortune and led a life of luxury.
When he died, SILive.com provided an obituary.
“He was a good mentor to me rest in peace,” said one commenter on the website named Edward Nucci.
Another person wrote: “Rest in peace Roman. You were indeed a gentle and kind man.”
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