https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/10/anna-paulina-luna-republican-biography/
friends said she described herself as alternately Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European. Known then by her given last name of Mayerhofer
Luna also stated on the campaign trail and in an interview with Jewish Insider in November that while she identifies as Christian, she was “raised as a Messianic Jew by her father.” Messianic Jews identify as Jewish and say they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi,” she added, referring to Jews whose ancestors lived in Central or Eastern Europe.
Luna’s mother said her father was a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith.”
“He eventually got clean and started attending a messianic Jewish church in Orange County. He brought Anna to services and she buried him to Jewish customs,” Monica Luna wrote in a text.
However, three members of Luna’s extended family said that her father was Catholic, and that they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up.
George Mayerhofer’s father, Heinrich Mayerhofer, immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954 and identified as Roman Catholic, according to an immigration record reviewed by The Post.
According to several family members, Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s.
One of his sons, Edward Mayerhofer — Luna’s uncle — provided The Post what he said was a portrait of Heinrich Mayerhofer dressed in a uniform as a young soldier in Germany. Experts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center who reviewed the photo confirmed the uniform was consistent with that of a member of the Wehrmacht, which was the armed forces of Nazi Germany.
Heinrich Mayerhofer was Luna’s paternal grandfather. (Courtesy of Edward Mayerhofer)
Jolanta Mayerhofer, Edward’s wife, said Heinrich Mayerhofer — who went by Henry — told her he had no choice but to serve the Nazi regime during the war.
“It hurt for him to talk about it,” she said. “He said, ‘You getting the letter, you need to show up, otherwise your life is over. … He did not like it, but that’s what life was.”
Monica Luna said she had never heard that Luna’s grandfather had Nazi ties. She noted that Luna is estranged from Edward Mayerhofer, who is the brother of Luna’s father and publicly raised inconsistencies in Luna’s biography on social media during her first bid for Congress. In response, Luna filed a request for a stalking injunction against him in 2020.