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MISSION
- Use modern genomic technologies to help reunite family members, provide information on living and deceased relatives and help Holocaust orphans identify living kin
- Assist European governments in the identification of human remains as mass graves are uncovered
- Develop multi-level, science-based curricula for teaching about the Holocaust in school and community settings
HISTORY
The DNA Shoah Project grew from one man’s quest for answers.
Project founder, Syd Mandelbaum, is a “second generation,” the son of two Holocaust survivors. Although three of his grandparents were cremated at Auschwitz in 1942, his mother’s father toiled in a slave labor camp for an additional year and his whereabouts are unknown. When Mr. Mandelbaum read an on-line news story in November 2005 about the discovery of World War II-era remains in Stuttgart, Germany, he realized that no database existed to aid in their repatriation or to alert families to their discovery.
Through Dr. Mark Stoneking, his collaborator on the Anastasia project, Mr. Mandelbaum was introduced to Dr. Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona and director of the Genomic Analysis and Technology Core (GATC) facility. Their meeting was fortuitous, as Dr. Hammer’s lab is uniquely positioned to perform the analysis necessary for this project.
Recent technological advances have dramatically reduced the cost of forensic genetic testing. Establishing a DNA database, as this project aims to, was not feasible even two or three years ago.
PEOPLE
Founders
Syd Mandelbaum, B.S., M.A., M.B.A., is a scientist and the son of two survivors. Working with the Video Archive of Holocaust Testimony at Yale University in 1981, he began documenting the testimony of Holocaust survivors and camp liberators. In 1994, he headed the American team that used DNA sequencing to disprove the relationship of Anna Anderson Manahan, who claimed to be Anastasia, to the Czar and Czarina Romanov. This landmark case was the first to use DNA to solve historical mysteries. Mr. Mandelbaum is also the CEO and founder of Rock and Wrap it Up!, an international anti-poverty and hunger-relief organization and think tank.
Dr. Michael Hammer is a Research Scientist in the Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona with joint appointments in the Anthropology Department and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He is Director of the Genomic Analysis and Technology Core (GATC), a facility that provides training and other DNA services at the University of Arizona.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984, Dr. Hammer performed post-doctoral research at Princeton and Harvard, where he began studies to develop the human Y chromosome as a genealogical tool. Over the past decade, his research group published a series of articles documenting the African origin of Y chromosome diversity, the time to the most recent Y chromosome ancestor, and human migrations to Europe, Asia and the Americas. He co-authored the first paper showing that present-day Cohanim are descended from a single male ancestor. He also published research based on both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the Y chromosome that deciphers the evolutionary history of the Jewish diaspora, with special focus on the Ashkenazi migrations to and within Europe. This work documenting the unusual migrational histor of the Ashkenazim ahs important implications for why more that 25 disease mutations are found at elevated frequency in this population.
Howard Cash, President, Gene Code Forensics, Inc., has been at the forefront of commercial bioinformatics development since 1984. He holds a governor-appointed seat on the Michigan State Commission on Genetics, Privacy and Progress, whose recommedations on genetic information and privacy have all been signed into Michigan state law.
Special Advisor to the Project
Dr. Karl Skorecki, MD, FRCP (C), FASN, is the Annie Chutick Professor in Medicine and director of the Rappaport Research Institute at the Technion - Israeli Institute of Technology. Dr. Skorecki also serves as director of Medical & Research Development at the Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel
Members of the Board
Jeanette Friedman
Bari Mandelbaum
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik
Marsha Shapiro
Dr. Karl Skorecki
Charles Srebnik
Lea Sigiel-Wolinetz
Sharona Thall
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