Following DNA trails, a Jewish family shattered by the Holocaust discovers its lost branches

Adrianna Turk, 74, discovered over 50 previously unknown relatives across the globe, including a second cousin in Jerusalem, Raanan Gidron, through a MyHeritage DNA test. Her father, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to New Zealand, had rarely spoken of his past, leading Turk to believe her family was almost entirely wiped out during the Holocaust, with her grandmother murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto and her aunt, uncle, and their children killed in Auschwitz. The DNA results revealed surviving branches of her family in Germany, Israel, Brazil, and other locations, defying the perceived total destruction.

"[My father] never spoke of it, and I never asked. I just knew that his whole family, his mum, sister, brother-in-law, their children, were all murdered."

This discovery led to emotional reunions and a deeper understanding of her heritage, including the remarkable survival story of Gidron's mother, who survived Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, and his father's service in the Palmach, an elite underground strike force in British Mandatory Palestine, where he helped locate and transport Jewish refugees after the war.