During World War II thousands of Jewish children were separated from their families, often placed with non-Jewish families to hide them. Many of these children who survived were very young and had little to no information about their birth families. Two DNA projects are trying to remedy that and reunite child survivors with relatives.
The
DNA Shoah Project is building a database of DNA from Holocaust survivors and their descendants to try to reunite families separated by the Holocaust
(Shoah in Hebrew). The project's aims are to match relatives, provide Shoah children with information about their biological families, and eventually assist in the forensic identification of Holocaust-era remains. The project also teaches about the Holocaust in schools. The DNA Shoah Project seeks DNA submissions from prewar immigrants, survivors, and second- and third-generation family members. There is no cost to participate.
The second project is a collaboration between
Identifinders International,
23andMe, and
Missing-Identity.net. Their
pilot study is using autosomal DNA testing to try to help Holocaust child survivors recover their birth identities. They are starting with a focus on two individuals who have little chance otherwise of learning about their birth families.
Though their approaches are different -- creating a general database of information versus focusing on specific individuals searching for family -- each of these projects is extremely important. Holocaust survivors are at a minimum 67 years old, and many are significantly older. Many of them pass away without ever finding that missing piece of information that could connect them with other relatives who survived. These studies have the potential to help them find information about the families they were separated from in World War II and connect with living relatives.
