Holocaust: Takes DNA test and discovers 50 surviving relatives

Adriana Turk he spent his entire life believing that his whole family tree had been swept away byHolocaust. Growing up with her parents and brother in the small coastal town of Merimbula in southeast Australia, she was uneasily faced with questions about her past. Childhood was mostly characterized by profound loneliness and the difficulty of integrating.

After her brother’s death, Mrs. Turk decided to undergo a DNA testing to understand its history. He expected little more than a few details and some information about his past. But what she discovered changed her life: more than 50 members of his family lived all over the world, including dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles, as well as their children and grandchildren.

The numbers of the Holocaust

Ms. Turk, 74, is one of a growing number of Jews who have found their own lost family members for some time thanks to DNA testing. Born to a German Jewish father who fled from Nazi Germany in 1937, Mrs. Turk had been told that all members of her family were among the approx 6 million people brutally murdered in Hitler’s genocide. His grandmother died in Warsaw ghettowhile his aunt, uncle and their two young children were killed ad Auschwitz in 1944.

“I guess I just assumed there was no one out there,” he said at the event Remembrance Day. “The loss of my brother left me with a big void and I thought, ‘Well, what can I find?’ And I found everything.”

How the test works

Il DNA testing is one of those, so to speak, housewares. You buy a box set online – there are different types – and comes the home kit. To carry out the test, all you need is a swab to be rubbed in the mouth for three minutes. Subsequently, the sample must be sent by post to the laboratory for analysis. After 3-4 weeks you can consult the results online.

The discovery of surviving relatives

The results spoke clearly: three relatives of the grandmother I am Adriana’s Holocaust survivors and their descendants are scattered throughout the world. Among these there was Renate Püttmannwho survived killings across Europe after being hidden as a teenager by a German soldier. Renate had eight children, whose descendants went to live in countries such as Germany, Brazil and Israel.

Ms. Turk also contacted her cousin Raanan Gidrona psychotherapist who lives in Israel. His mother survived the concentration camps Theresienstadt e Auschwitzthen fleeing from Europe. Now Ms. Turk feels she has finally found “the missing piece“of her life. “As a child I felt invisible. I felt empty. How do you feel something when you don’t know what it is? But now I’ve found it.”