Ephraim Kochba has no memory of his parents, who were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.
His mother died in Auschwitz. Now, 61 years later, Mr Kochba may finally discover what happened to his father, whose body may be one of 34 found recently in a Nazi-era mass grave in Stuttgart, Germany.
Nadia Kahan, researcher, Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial
"It may after all these years give me some closure," Mr Kochba told reporters from Kibbutz Naan, the collective farm where he has lived since moving to Israel as an orphan after World War Two.
The grave, believed to contain the remains of Jewish slave labourers, was discovered in September by construction workers during drainage work at a US army base in a Stuttgart suburb.
Mr Kochba is one of dozens of Israeli relatives of Holocaust victims who Interpol investigators have tracked down so they can compare their DNA with that of the bodies found in the grave.
About 620 prisoners were moved from Auschwitz to the camp at Eichterdingen when it was set up in November 1944, using slave labour to help the German war effort against the Allied armies. The prisoners worked in a local quarry and helped build an airfield.
Only 385 were still alive when the camp was shut in February 1945. "Over 200 seem to have perished, probably from starvation, typhus and exposure," said Ms Nadia Kahan, a researcher at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
She helped police find relatives of those who died at the camp by cross-checking the names of about three million of the six million Jewish Holocaust victims collated by Yad Vashem with a list of the camp's 619 prisoners.
The name of Kochba's father appeared on the prisoner list, handed to the Israeli police by their German counterparts after the discovery of the mass grave.
There is only a small chance that his father's body is among the remains found in the grave, but the kibbutznik is hopeful.
"At least I would have a grave where I can mourn him," he said.
Born in the war, Mr Kochba was given to a Dutch family to raise as his parents feared falling into the clutches of the Nazis. Shortly afterwards they were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz.
Mr Kochba had always thought both his parents had died in Auschwitz. But now it appears his father survived the death camp only to perish at Eichterdingen. The investigators will now try to match DNA from the skeletons in the mass grave and with that of living relatives.
Once the 34 victims have been identified, a memorial plaque bearing their names will probably be erected.