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An 83-year-old man, who was left without parents during the Holocaust and secretly escaped from Nazi-controlled Warsaw, has been able to reconnect with his family after many years of separation.
In 1941, a Jewish teacher and psychologist named Lena Kuchler-Silberman found an abandoned baby named Shalom Koray in the Warsaw ghetto. She courageously helped him escape along with four other young children, giving him the name Piotr Korczak.
Ms Kuchler-Silberman organized for the children to be placed in orphanages located in Polish monasteries. Following World War II, she facilitated their relocation to her own orphanage in Zakopane.
In March 1949, Piotr Korczak emigrated to Israel and adopted the name Shalom Koray, which translates to “peace”.
He was a father to three children and a grandfather to eight grandchildren. He resided at a kibbutz in the Jordan Valley for the majority of his life, where he worked as a truck driver. However, he had no understanding of his own personal history.
Shalom was found as a deserted infant in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation and secretly taken away.
He stated that it is impossible to begin looking for something without any prior knowledge about it.
I had nothing, not even the slightest trace of identity. My name at birth remains a mystery.
“I had no knowledge about my identity. Without the DNA test, there would be no way to determine it. My true name is unknown to me and to others.”
If a person is born with blindness, they have never had the experience of sight. They are not aware of what they are lacking. I was born into this world and had no knowledge of anything different. The concept of parents was unknown to me. I was not aware of its existence.
During the summer of 2023, a professor from Jagiellonian University in Warsaw presented Mr Koray with a MyHeritage DNA test for her study on the 100 children rescued by Ms Kuchler-Silberman.
In September 2023, on the opposite side of the globe, a resident of Charleston, South Carolina named Ann Hellman was notified of a match with a second cousin, but was unfamiliar with their identity.
Ann Hellman, a resident of South Carolina in the United States, was paired with Shalom from a different part of the globe.
As a passionate genealogist, Ms. Hellman, who is 77 years old, began to explore further and requested her cousin, Jeanmarie Fields Hostein, to submit her DNA to the MyHeritage website.
The DNA of Mr Koray was a match for that of Ms Fields Hostein, which confirmed that he was related to her father.
Ms. Hellman expressed that they had all believed this particular branch of the family had been completely eliminated. The discovery of Shalom is seen as a miraculous event.
Further investigation revealed that Mr. Koray’s grandfather was actually Yadidia Mednitsky, who was Ann’s great-uncle. Yadidia’s sibling, Abrahm Louis Mednitzky Meddin, was Ann’s paternal grandfather and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1893.
The entire family in the United States believed that Yadidia and his entire family perished in the Holocaust, with no survivors.
Mr. Koray recently received his first information about his family and personal identity. Thanks to a DNA match, he has discovered that he has a large extended family in the United States.
Shalom with a MyHeritage researcher – a professor at Jagiellonian University in Warsaw gave Mr Koray a MyHeritage DNA test as part of her research
After receiving a photo of Mr. Koray, Ms. Hellman realized that there was a strong family resemblance. She noted that he looked exactly like her younger brother Stuart, who resides in Atlanta.
Ms. Hellman thinks that Shalom looks very similar to her younger brother, Stuart (on the left).
The couple has engaged in multiple phone calls and video chats, and are planning to have a grand celebration in July to celebrate Mr. Koray’s addition to the family.
Ms. Hellman mentioned that he will encounter many relatives who bear a striking resemblance to him.
“I provided a family for a survivor of the Holocaust, and even months later, I still get chills thinking about it. I am eagerly anticipating the moment when I can embrace Mr. Koray and hold him close to my heart.”
Source: independent.co.uk
