80 years after the Holocaust, a genealogy test helped her find a cousin she never even knew was alive

Ann Meddin Hellman found a cousin she thought had died in the Holocaust and learned of his remarkable tale of survival, thanks to a DNA test.

Ann Meddin Hellman had all but given up hope that she would learn more information about her father’s side of the family — a lineage long-believed to have been erased in the horrors of the Holocaust.

So it was a mix of surprise, shock and utter disbelief that followed when she learned five months ago she has an 83-year-old second cousin and Holocaust survivor living in Israel.

“We knew his family was annihilated in the Holocaust,” the South Carolina mother and grandmother told NBC News. “That’s been the family story I had heard forever.”

Ann Meddin Hellman.Courtesy Meddin FamilyThanks to a DNA testing service offered by MyHeritage, finding her cousin Shalom Koray and learning of his remarkable tale of survival has opened up a new chapter in their family’s history.

“We would have never found him,” she said. “There was no way that I could have looked him up in a phone book or found him under any circumstances. … I bet there would have been no other way besides DNA.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/holocaust-cousin-dna-test-rcna135969

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