Acknowledgments ixPrologue xThe O ner-Bottner Family Tree xviiMelly 1Genek 17Melly 27A Wedding 37Melly 41German Occupation 47Melly 55The Anti-Jewish Laws 59Melly 65Andree Geulen and the Resistance 69Melly 81Bobby 87Belgium and Holland 91Melly 97Bobby 105Irene 107Pictures 113In Hiding 129Back in Lvov 137Genek’s Luck runs out 145Melly 151The Tide Turns 157Liberation 161Melly 167After Liberation 175Nathan’s Freedom 189Melly 195Re ections on a Calamity 207Epilogue 229Descendants of Leopold and Gertrude O ner 241Sources and Further Reading 243Colophon 255When her son was born, Tammy Bottner experienced flashbacks of being hunted by the Nazis. The strange thing is, these experiences didn’t happen to her. They happened to her grandmother decades earlier and thousands of miles away.During the dark days of the Holocaust, a Jewish family struggles to survive.When her son was born, Tammy Bottner experienced flashbacks of being hunted by the Nazis. The strange thing is, these experiences didn’t happen to her. They happened to her grandmother decades earlier and thousands of miles away.Back in Belgium, Grandma Melly made unthinkable choices in order to save her family during WWII, including sending her two-year-old son, Bottner’s father, into hiding in a lonely Belgian convent. 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 Melly’s perspective, the author, a physician, recounts the saga of her 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.During the dark days of the Holocaust, a Jewish family struggles to survive.When her son was born, Tammy Bottner experienced flashbacks of being hunted by the Nazis. The strange thing is, these experiences didn’t happen to her. They happened to her grandmother decades earlier and thousands of miles away.Back in Belgium, Grandma Melly made unthinkable choices in order to save her family during WWII, including sending her two-year-old son, Bottner’s father, into hiding in a lonely Belgian convent. 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 Melly’s perspective, the author, a physician, recounts the saga of her 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.