Photo: Gemma Evans | Unsplash
Jackie Young, orphaned as an infant, spent his first few years of life in a Nazi internment camp. After World War II ended, he was adopted in England and given a new name. He had no knowledge of his birth father, and barely any information about his birth mother. All that changed this year, when Young was able to give a DNA sample and work with genealogists to help find his father's name and other relatives. At the age of 80, Young remarks, "If I hadn’t known what I do know now, I think I would still felt that my left arm or my right arm wasn’t fully formed." Young's journey is part of a growing effort to give other Holocaust survivors and their children the chance to reunite with long lost, or never known, members of their biological lineage. The DNA Reunion Project, of New York's Center for Jewish History, offers DNA testing kits for free through an online application, as well as guidance from genealogists.
|
|
More:
