The Ovitz family, Jewish actors and traveling musicians, were the largest recorded family of dwarfs. Ranging in age from 15 months to 58 years, all 12 members survived imprisonment at Auschwitz during WWII, making them the largest family to enter and leave the camp intact.
When I was a child and many of my family members were “missing”, I’d tell myself that they were fine. They got lost somewhere in all the mess. Maybe they just got hurt and bumped their head, losing their memory. So they must’ve left the country as refugees and one day their memories would return and they’d come back to us.
I’d say that about my grandfather especially and then we found his remains in 2001. Almost 10 years after he was killed, his head cut off and his body thrown in the Drina river only to end up somewhere buried.
When they uncovered his remains, the family did the DNA testing and it was my father and my great-aunt who recognised his remains. His plaid shirt. The little Quran he always carried in his pocket.
Of all the family members that were “missing”, we have only ever found the remains of him.
Not my uncles, not my cousins, not my aunts, not countless other family members and friends.