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Growing up Catholic in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, Yvonne Sabato thought it was a bit strange to be the only child in her circle of friends without extended family. It wasn't until three decades later that Sabato confirmed the only explanation that made sense: she was Jewish, and the rest of her family was murdered in the Holocaust.

Sabato's son is the famous actor and model Antonio Sabato Jr., who will be starring in his own reality show on VH1 called "My Antonio". The show, which premiers Aug. 16, chronicles Sabato Jr.'s search for love among a group of women who spend each episode competing for his attention, and Yvonne will participate as well, offering motherly advice.

In the first episode, Sabato Jr. eliminates one of the contestants after a brief conversation with Yvonne. Sabato Jr. then looks into the camera and says, "I've been wrong with every girl I've ever been with, and my mother's been right."

"That's completely true," Yvonne said with a laugh, in a phone interview with The Jewish State. "Sometimes it's easier for the people looking from outside to see certain things, other than people looking at themselves."

Sabato's childhood was anything but normal. After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), the Czech elites were immediate targets of the new ruling class. Sabato's parents were well educated aristocrats, and were forced to perform in a traveling circus after the family's wealth was confiscated.

At age 7, Sabato was left home alone on the government's orders when her parents went on tour, to ensure her parents would return. For food, Sabato used food stamps and a neighbor would bring her dinner.

"And it didn't matter what my mother did," Sabato said. "She tried so hard -- I remember even writing a letter to the president to allow me to come with them, and they wouldn't do it. They kept me as a hostage."

Sabato eventually became an actress, and while performing in Italy she and her parents took asylum there. In 1971, her mother returned to Czechoslovakia and was murdered within days. Sabato wasn't permitted to attend the funeral, and the Czech government would not release Sabato's records.

Sabato married Antonio Sabato Sr., a popular actor in Italy, and the family moved to the United States in 1985. With the help of the Red Cross, Sabato found out about her family's Jewish faith, though too late to ask her parents for more details.

"That's why it was so difficult for me, because now I don't have anybody to ask really the questions, like what happened?" Sabato said. "But I know from the Red Cross, because they sent me the documents, that 99 percent -- my grandparents and my uncles -- were taken to Auschwitz."

Sabato said she considers herself Jewish, but the news hasn't changed her life too much because she lacks the background of someone who grew up with the faith.

"So you have certain bases for certain things, and then you find out that that's not the way it is, and you find out that you're Jewish; so in a sense it's confusing," Sabato said, adding that she would rather have been raised Jewish. "Like other people here, who are able to have their kids absorb the religion and learn about it and have all this knowledge, which I obviously don't have. So in a sense, I would prefer the other way."

She does, however, acknowledge that being raised "Catholic" instead of Jewish may have saved her life, and that of many others.

So what is she looking for in her son's mate?

"The first thing is obviously the connection between the two people, and also having kind of the same interests, and complement each other," she said.

Sabato also wants her future daughter-in-law to have solid family values, something she thinks is missing in a lot of the women he meets in America. She said some of the girls may think Antonio is a "mama's boy," but it's really a cultural divide.

"We have a much deeper connection with the parents in Europe than maybe here," she said. "Here, when the kids are teenagers, they leave the house and they're on the go. In Europe, and especially Italy, it's not this way."

She won't, however, require Antonio to marry a Jew or an Italian.

"The thing about me growing up in so many different places, and growing up with different religions, I can say now I have no preferences," she said. "As long as he's happy -- that's it. That's the only goal here."

Her life story has only reinforced her feeling that the younger generations should get a full Holocaust education, and visit the camps and other Holocaust-era sites in Europe. Sabato herself visited those places with Antonio before she knew she was Jewish, and the experience, she said, guards against the fading memory of that time.

"I think everybody should go and see what has been done, because it's starting sometimes to feel like it didn't happen," she said. "And I think it should be kept alive and people should go and visit those places. And I think that the younger generation should be [taken there] by the schools and it should be transmitted, because there's still many crazy people in this world."