Tracing roots: Why every Jew should reclaim family histories disrupted by the Holocaust - opinion

The 50th anniversary of Alex Haley's seminal book "Roots" continues to inspire a global movement of tracing family origins, a pursuit that holds particular significance for Jewish individuals seeking to reclaim histories disrupted by the Holocaust. While some in Germany use newly accessible archives to investigate potential Nazi ties in their family past, many Jews are embarking on a voyage of discovery, often challenging long-held beliefs about family loss.

For decades, many Jews of European descent grew up assuming all their relatives were murdered during the Holocaust. However, genealogical societies and advancements in DNA testing have revealed a different narrative for many. These tools have helped individuals discover that some of their forebears survived the atrocities and, along with their descendants, are living elsewhere in the world, sometimes even nearby.

These discoveries are leading to deeply moving family reunions. One such reunion is taking place this month in Israel, facilitated by MyHeritage, connecting second cousins Adrianna Turk from Australia and Raanan Gidron from Israel. Turk, whose father was Jewish, believed no one from his family had survived. Gidron's mother, however, had survived both Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Turk's outreach via social media after a DNA test led to her virtual and subsequent in-person meeting with Gidron.

Israel has a history of dedicated efforts to locate relatives of Holocaust survivors, with searches once broadcast on radio and published in newspapers. The establishment of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in 1988 further formalized these efforts. Countless stories of family reunions and historical tracing have emerged, including a heartwarming account of two elderly Romanian Holocaust survivors who met on a shopping center bench, each believing they were the sole survivor of their families.