Family history
Separated during the Holocaust: family reunites after decades
Three women have found each other after a long time (symbol picture)
© Avelino Calvar Martinez / Getty Images
Two sisters from the USA spent years looking for their mother’s first missing child, who had been taken away from him in a concentration camp. By chance they came across a hot lead.
Two sisters from the United States, Dena Morris and Jean Gearhart, had a mission and had been for many years. Her mother, Dora Rapaport, died in 1998. She had told her children about her moving life story: As a Jew, she was sent to a concentration camp during the Second World War, where her immediate family was killed. For her, she survived in a miraculous way, first fled to Austria after the end of the war, where she met her future husband, and then to the USA with him. But in addition to the tragic fate of her parents and siblings, which she at least knew, something else preoccupied her over the years: the whereabouts of her first child.
The little girl named Eva was born in the mid-1940s, and Dora Rapaport was a young mother when she was around 17. Dena and Jean, their daughters, do not know exactly who Eva’s father was and whether the baby was born before the mother was imprisoned or was even born in a concentration camp. There is an old photo of Dora Rapaport with a baby in her arms – she looks happy and well dressed on it. An indication that Eve was still born free. But a few months after Dora Rapaport was locked up in the concentration camp, the little girl was taken away from her. She never found out what became of her first daughter.
The baby was taken from the mother
Rapaport often talked about little Eva and she looked for her all her life. She flew several times from the USA to Germany to visit orphanages. She had inquiries made. But all in vain. When their mother was dying, Dena and Jean promised her not to forget the missing sister and to continue the search. But at first they had little hope of ever finding a trace – the two women assumed that the little child had probably not survived the war. Still, they didn’t give up.
And then they did one of the genetic tests that have now become popular, with which one can roughly find out its origin these days. Through this test, the two sisters came across an unknown close relative – a niece who lived in England. Both were surprised and a bit skeptical at first. “It sounded incredible to say the least,” admits Dena Morris. But the two contacted the stranger to find out more.
The sisters find their niece
The first thing Clare Reay had to report was sadly sad: Her mother, probably the missing sister, was no longer alive. She sent photos to Dena and Jean – and they could hardly believe it: the woman who had lived in England under the name Evelyn Reay looked very similar to the late Dora Rapaport. There were also many similarities in character. Clare Reay reported that her mother was adopted from an orphanage after World War II and that an Israeli couple took in the Jewish girl. The only information the adoptive parents got was that the little girl was said to have been born in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 – neither the place nor the year agree with Dora Rapaport’s reports. Presumably all relevant papers were lost in the war, and people improvised in the orphanage.
The couple from Israel later moved to England with the girl, who was now called Evelyn, where she grew up and later started a family of her own. According to her daughter Clare, she knew nothing of her real origin, although she kept trying to investigate. After a few phone calls, the exchange of pictures, anecdotes and information, everyone involved was convinced that the gene database was right and that they were actually related – and that the missing sister had been found. Unfortunately too late, but at least Dena and Jean could now get in touch with their niece, about whom they never knew anything before. And Clare suddenly had two aunts in the United States.
Dena Morris (left), Clare Reay (center) and Jean Gearhart (right)
© MyHeritage
The family finally comes together
And after many months in which the women could only talk by phone or via video call, Clare decided to travel to the USA and visit her aunts. Surprisingly, one day she stood at their door – Dena and Jean’s children had helped organize the meeting quietly and secretly. The joy was overwhelming. “It was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me,” says Dena Morris in the Washington Post. “From the moment she stepped over the doorstep and we hugged, it was like she just belonged here.”
Clare stayed in the USA for two weeks and now her aunts are planning to travel to England soon to visit her niece there. Everyone is happy to have found this unexpected contact with each other – even if neither Dora Rapaport nor her missing daughter Evelyn could witness this. “Bittersweet” is what Dena Morris calls it. “All I hope is that the two have found each other again in heaven and know that we have found each other down here too.”
Sources: “Washington Post”, “MyHeritage”