Orphaned Holocaust Survivor Finds Cousins Through DNA Testing
Saved from a burning Warsaw neighborhood as a toddler, Shalom Korai grew up and lived in Israel with no idea of his past and no family — until he walked off an airplane in South Carolina and into the arms of second cousin Ann Meddin Hellman. In 2023, MyHeritage offered Korai and other Holocaust orphans DNA testing and that brought him the family he had always been praying for. Some mysteries remain, so Hellman knows the name of Korai’s aunt but hasn’t been able to find his parents’ names. More than a dozen relatives met him at the airport, and dozens more at Hellman’s house. “He’ll get to see himself in them in a way he has never gotten to see himself before,” Hellman said. “And we get to give a family to someone who never thought one existed.”
