Real Life A DNA test found my lost family
Clare Reay never expected to solve the mystery that haunted her mother
To most people, this photograph of my mother and grandmother is simply a black-and-white image of a pretty young woman holding a baby. She has a half smile on her face as the child tries to wriggle free. But to me, it’s both heartbreaking and incredible. The baby, Evelyn, is my mum, and the woman, Dora, my grandma. Mum never had the chance to see the photo, never even knew it existed. She died, aged 69, believing her mother had perished in a concentration camp. Mum couldn’t have dreamt that, across the Atlantic, Dora lived to be 71 years old, desperately searching for her lost baby all her life. But with one DNA test, in March 2020, I accidentally uncovered the truth.
Without a date of birth, a name or any paperwork, Mum’s early years were all questions and no answers. She believed that she’d been born in Bergenbelsen concentration camp in Germany in 1945. When it was liberated that same year, she somehow ended up in an orphanage in Israel, to be adopted by parents who brought her to the UK. Everything else was a blank, and she tried, somehow, to fill that unknown space.
Perhaps her father had been an SS officer, and that explained
‘HER EARLY YEARS WERE A BLANK’
why she was spared when so many others were murdered. One thing she was sure about was that her mother Dora must have died in the camp because otherwise they would have been liberated together. My three siblings and I grew up in Newcastle always knowing about it. I also knew that, until her early 20s, Mum had tried to find answers.
But with paperwork destroyed and little support from the authorities, her research led nowhere. As an adult and a mother, I look back on my childhood with clearer eyes. Mum was a gregarious woman, the life and soul of the party. But I can see that all this had deeply affected her mental health, that her irritability and periods of depression were the result of the early years she couldn’t remember. Certain moments stand out to me now. The family tree that my dad drew up, his side going back generation after generation – hers a blank. The times my siblings and I would ask her,
with loving exasperation, to turn off the endless documentaries about the Nazis. To us, they just added to her sadness. Now I can see that they were her way of searching for answers or a connection.
Surprise revelation
As we both got older, Mum and I became very close. Her moods lightened and she adored being a grandmother, first to my son, John, and then to my brother’s and sister’s children. She loved little babies – once they were in her arms, she just wouldn’t let them go.
Losing Mum in February 2014, to pancreatic cancer, was a terrible blow, compounded by the sudden death of my dad the following year. Losing them both felt like a chapter of my life had ended. I had no idea that sending off a saliva
swab in March 2020 would fling that book wide open again.
The myheritage.com DNA test was a surprise 52nd birthday gift from my son John. A few weeks after sending off the tube, the results arrived back. They revealed that my heritage was a mixture of Scandinavian and Ashkenazi Jewish.
I forwarded the results to John and thought no more about it. Then, a few weeks later, an email popped up from a woman in America called Dena who said that she and I shared an 11% DNA match. Her mum Dora had been in a concentration camp and had lost track of her daughter Eva (our mother’s name had been changed to Evelyn).
‘There’s a good possibility your mum might be our sister,’ she wrote. I went into shock. I hadn’t even considered the test would connect me to relatives. Could it be possible that this was my aunt, and that my grandma hadn’t died in the camp after all?
I replied with a few details about mum, explaining that she had died six years before. ‘I’m crushed and excited at the same time,’ Dena replied. ‘I’d have done anything for my mother to know about her. Mum spent her life searching for the daughter she lost.’
Then Dena sent me a picture of Dora, and it was like looking at my mum. Not just the blonde hair, but the features, the expression – I simply couldn’t believe it.
Joy and sadness
It’s hard to describe the whirlwind of emotions I felt as the messages were flying back and forth. Hearing that Dora had desperately searched for her daughter all her life was devastating. The anguish she must have felt is unimaginable. Of course, Mum had no idea that while she raised us in the UK, Dora was not only alive but obsessed with finding her. Dora died in 1998, but she had asked Dena and her sister Jean to keep searching for Eva.
Now, on phone calls and Zoom chats that last for hours, Dena, 72, Jean, 74, and I share stories. The coincidences are incredible. Both Mum and Dora were gregarious but suffered depression. They loved sparkly jewellery, hated housework and married men who adored them. Their lives mirrored each other in such extraordinary ways.
Each revelation brings me joy and sadness. If only Mum and Dora had lived long enough to know that the other was searching for them. But at least we know it – and as soon as COVID-19 allows, we can reunite our families. Until then, I can spend time talking to Dena and Jean, and enjoy seeing faces so much like Mum’s smiling back at me.