DNA test reconnects Australian woman with dozens of Jewish relatives long presumed lost in the Holocaust

The discovery of a shared genetic code has reunited an Australian woman with a branch of her family she believed had vanished during the Holocaust. Adriana Turk, 74, located roughly 50 living relatives across several continents after submitting a DNA sample to the genealogy company MyHeritage. The finding has reshaped her understanding of her family history eight decades after her father fled Nazi Germany.

Search begins after decades of silence

Turk was born and raised in New Zealand, where her father, John Hans Turk, settled after escaping Germany in 1937. Throughout her childhood, little was said about his early life or the fate of his extended family. He died in 1990 without providing details, leaving only fragments shared by Turk’s late mother. For years, she accepted the belief that every close relative on her father’s side had perished during World War II.

The death of her older brother in 2024 prompted a renewed effort to uncover the family’s past. Seeking clarity, she ordered a home DNA kit from MyHeritage. When the results were uploaded to the company’s database, they produced nearly 15,000 potential genetic matches. After researchers cross-referenced those matches with user-generated family trees on the platform, dozens of connections pointed to living kin in Europe, the Middle East and South America—people of whom Turk had never heard.

Historical backdrop

Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated six million Jews were murdered under the Nazi regime and its allies. The scope of the genocide is documented extensively by institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which preserves survivor testimonies and archival records. For families like the Turks, the widespread displacement and destruction left generational gaps that often seemed impossible to bridge.

Confirming the connection

Among Turk’s closest DNA matches was 73-year-old Raanan Gidron, an Israeli engineer who had independently been mapping his own family tree. The two are second cousins, sharing the same set of great-grandparents. MyHeritage staff facilitated an introductory video call last week, during which the cousins compared family lore, photographs and documents. They quickly confirmed that Gidron’s father had exchanged at least one letter with John Hans Turk decades earlier, though correspondence apparently ceased and the families lost touch.

Gidron also discovered that he and his relatives once visited the grave of Turk’s grandfather, Julian Turk, unaware of the surviving branch in Australasia. Both cousins described the virtual reunion as a pivotal moment that replaced decades of uncertainty with concrete relationships.

Plans for an in-person reunion

Buoyed by the discovery, Turk intends to travel to Europe for the first time during the northern-hemisphere summer. Her itinerary includes her father’s hometown in Germany, meetings with multiple newly identified cousins and a possible stop in Israel at Gidron’s invitation. Gidron said he expects to join her in Germany and accompany her to family sites of historical importance.

Imagem: Internet

Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day

The renewed family ties coincided with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed annually on 27 January, the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Gidron used the occasion to emphasize the importance of preserving historical memory and combating denial. For Turk, the timing underscored both the losses suffered by previous generations and the resilience reflected in her family’s unexpected survival.

Impact of modern genealogy tools

Turk’s experience highlights the increasing role of consumer DNA testing in resolving longstanding historical questions. Genealogy platforms routinely match users with distant cousins, but cases involving families dispersed by war and genocide carry particular emotional weight. By combining genetic information with archival records and user-built family trees, such services can reestablish links once thought irrevocably severed.

In Turk’s case, the process has already produced a network of emails, photographs and planned visits. She describes feeling embraced by relatives who, moments earlier, were complete strangers. Although the late John Hans Turk never witnessed these reunions, his daughter views the discovery as a final, irreplaceable piece of her family’s narrative.

Crédito da imagem: MyHeritage