Dur­ing the dark days of the Holo­caust, a Jew­ish fam­i­ly strug­gles to survive.

The author’s grand­par­ents were new­ly­weds when Hitler invad­ed Europe. As the Nazi mad­ness enveloped the con­ti­nent, they were forced to make unthink­able choic­es in order to save them­selves and their young chil­dren, even­tu­al­ly send­ing their two-year-old son into hid­ing alone in a lone­ly Bel­gian con­vent, and giv­ing their new­born daugh­ter up for adop­tion. Ulti­mate­ly these sac­ri­fices worked, and the fam­i­ly was reunit­ed. But was there a hid­den cost?

Decades lat­er, when her son was born, the author expe­ri­enced flash­backs of being hunt­ed by the Nazis. Did the trau­ma that Tam­my Bot­tner’s pre­de­ces­sors expe­ri­ence affect their DNA? Did she inher­it the mem­o­ries of the war-time trau­ma in her very genes?

In this mov­ing fam­i­ly mem­oir, told part­ly from her grand­moth­er Mel­ly’s per­spec­tive, the author, a physi­cian, recounts the remark­able saga of her coura­geous fam­i­ly’s expe­ri­ences dur­ing the Holo­caust. This tale, part his­to­ry, part sci­en­tif­ic reflec­tion on epi­ge­net­ics, takes the read­er on a jour­ney that may read like a nov­el, but is all the more fas­ci­nat­ing for being true.