Shadowing Practice: Andrew Garfield’s Holocaust Family Story | Season 21 Episode 3 | Who Do You Think You Are - Learn English Speaking with Video

It's miserable.

It's eight degrees.

That's kind of what I like about it.

You get into like a fight or flight kind of state and it kind of purifies every other unnecessary thought.

Yeah, it just simplifies everything.

Andrew Garfield is a celebrated Hollywood movie star.

He lives between London and Los Angeles,

but spent his childhood in Surrey with his parents Richard and Lynn Garfield and his older brother Ben.

My dad is, um, he was my swimming coach.

One of the things I'm most proud of in my life

I'm most proud of in my life is my relationship with my dad.

And for me, swimming, I feel...

...soothed by it.

There's a nostalgia.

It's me and my mum.

That's one of my favourite photos.

Of me and her together ever.

I mean, that just kind of sums up the vibe.

Not everyone gets that kind of mothering.

I got lucky lucky Andrew's mom Lynn died in 2019

It's quite hard to talk about my mom and my relationship with her

especially after she she passed she was pure kindness and and care and Yeah,

you know She was the best of us.

She was absolutely the best of us.

Andrew shot to fame when he appeared in the movie The Social Network

and has won multiple awards for his screen and stage work, including a Tony Award for his role in the play Angels in America.

I want to see blood because I can't believe you even have blood in your veins until you show it to me.

So don't come near me again!

My nana, my dad's mum, would always say, Oh, he's gotta go to clown college, isn't he?

And I did go to clown college.

Central School of Speech and Drama.

It's nowhere near clown college.

Very prestigious school.

You know, just pretending, pretending to be people for a living.

It was brilliant.

Tea cozy and oven mitts.

Very cool.

Just an idiot, just needing constant attention.

Andrew's most famous role to date is Spider-Man.

That's me and my brother, Ben.

Kind of prophetic image, for one of us anyway.

My mum made my costume out of felt, my Spider-Man costume.

I was like two and a half, maybe.

They were so excited when I got that role.

Because they knew what that character meant to me.

They weren't nervous for me.

Ooh!

I don't know much about my family history.

The furthest I can go back is granddad and grandma on my dad's side.

And I know that there was an exodus from,

I think, Poland, to escape persecution.

I feel a longing to connect more to my Jewish heritage on my dad's side.

I'm really curious about that.

There's large parts of my identity that I just feel quite far away from.

And, um, in the pursuit of truth, I'm excited to pursue some maybe darker truths or, like, unknown truths.

MUSIC How are you?

I'm good, how are you?

Long time no see.

Hey, well...

has asked his dad Richard to come over and share anything he knows about their Jewish ancestors from Poland.

I'm excited.

I know who these people are.

So that's obviously, that's granddad Sam.

I couldn't remember Nana's name.

Really?

She's just Nana to me.

My mother and father were Doris May Savage and originally Samuel Garfinkel.

Garfinkel.

They moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, before I was born.

Got it.

He was a handsome fellow, wasn't he?

He adored you and Ben.

Yeah.

He was actually born in Poland in 1909 and emigrated to London shortly after he was born.

And his father was Ludwig Harry Garfinkel.

Uh-huh.

That's a photograph of Ludwig Harry, your great-grandfather.

It's the Garfinkel ears, that's for sure. Which you don't have.

I do. And your grandfather, Samuel. And Sam.

And his mother...

Sam's mom.

...was your great-grandmother, Sara Kupchick.

This is her.

And both of those names got changed.

So Kupchick became Cooper.

Oh. And Garfinkel...

...came Garfield.

...became Garfield.

And that was as a result of both families wanting to westernize...

Yeah.

...their names.

Being brought up in Los Angeles, I had no idea when I was a little boy.. when I was a little boy that my grandmother,

your great-grandmother's family, had all immigrated.

Your great-grandmother, Sara, had a lot of siblings.

And Harry Cooper, who was the first one to leave England to emigrate to the US, opened a shop in Beverly Hills,

which was a famous clothes store for women.

Oh, wow.

Really?

100

Yeah.

101

The creative connection there is really interesting to me.

102

I do know your great-grandfather, Ludwig Garfinkel, died shortly after I was born.

103

Mm-hmm.

104

My father never really wanted to talk about him.

105

Okay.

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And I don't know why.

107

Yeah, I didn't.

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It's one of the taboo subjects in the family.

109

It seems like maybe he went through some stuff that you're not aware of.

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I think you're right.

111

So here's another photograph of Ludwig Harry.

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But the two ladies with him are unknown.

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and they could be his sisters.

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Hmm.

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And what's really exciting is that there may be Garfinkels out in the world who we don't know about,

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who are blood relations.

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Wow.

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Okay.

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Wow, that's a beautiful photo.

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It's gorgeous.

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Who is this lady?

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We have no idea.

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It's in Yiddish, and I don't speak Yiddish.

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It would be so good if one of us could read Yiddish.

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If one of us was a good Jew.

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Unfortunately.

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Neither of us are.

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Neither of us are.

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In there is your great-grandfather.

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Ludwig Harry, centre back.

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But the bottom right of that photograph...

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Yeah.

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...identifies where it is. In Kiel...

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Kielsa.

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Kielsa.

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In southern Poland.

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So your grandparents met in Kielsa?

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Correct.

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I have no idea about Kielsa.

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This is tantalizing, this trail, this whole other family.

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I want to know everything on the Garfinkel side.

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Just like seeking the truth and trying to shine a light on the places where it's most dark.

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You know, the places that no one wanted to talk about.

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That's where I want to go.

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Andrew has learned that on his dad's side, his Polish great-grandparents were Ludwig Garfinkel and Sara Kupczyk, from Kielce in Poland.

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They emigrated to London when his granddad Sam was a baby.

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Sara's parents and siblings also emigrated to London, then later America, and Sara's brother Harry was the first to go to Los Angeles,

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where he changed his name to Cooper, and worked in the fashion industry.

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But Ludwig's family in Poland remain a mystery.

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So Andrew is heading to his great-grandparents' home, the city of Kielce, in the south of the country, to find out who they were and what became of them.

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So we just arrived in Kielsa.

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It does feel like a homecoming.

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I do feel...

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I don't know.

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It feels familiar to me in some mysterious unknown way.

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Andrew is meeting genealogist Matan Sheffey at the National Museum of Kielsa to find out who his great-grandfather's family were.

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Hello.

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How are you?

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Very well.

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How are you?

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Nice to meet you.

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How are you?

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Nice to meet you.

164

Nice to meet you too.

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Welcome to Kielce.

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Thank you.

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It's a really humble office that you have here.

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It's wonderful.

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So, we have been doing some research in the Polish archives, and we were able to find information about your great-grandfather and the family,

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and to build a family tree that looks like this.

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Oh, wow.

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Arya...

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Leybusz.

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Leybusz.

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Arya?

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Am I saying that right?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Arya Leybusz.

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Arya Leybusz.

180

Wait, so it's Garfin Kiel.

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Yes.

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Arya Leibush Garfin Kiel, born 1888.

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Is that my great-grandfather, Ludwig Harry?

184

Yes, in Yiddish.

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Yiddish, right.

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So Shmuel Aaron, born 1852.

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Died 1904.

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And Shaya Guta?

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Chaya.

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Chaya Guta.

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Chaya Guta Shapiro?

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Yes, exactly.

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Your great-great-grandparents, and all of these basically are your great-great...

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Uncle and aunt.

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We had a theory that he must have had siblings, but this is the first kind of proof that he absolutely did.

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Had a bunch of siblings.

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Six blood siblings.

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Chandra, Dvorah, Basha, Peretz, Esthera...

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Yes. And Rukhla?

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Rukhla...

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Garfin Kiel.

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Yes.

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Actually, Peretz, the only brother who your great-grandfather had died at quite young age.

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Okay.

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So Ludwig Harry had five sisters?

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Yeah.

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It's like kind of pulling up a...

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a trap door and finding a whole family line.

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It's, um, quite moving.

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Ruchler was born in 1904, which is the same year that my great-great-grandfather,

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Schmuel Aron Garfinkel, passed away.

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Her father.

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Her father, yeah.

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And we have one record of marriage to one of the sisters.

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Ruchla, to another Shmuel, Shmuel Isaac Spielman.

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Yes.

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Oh, okay.

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So I have these photos.

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This is Ludwig Harry Garfinkel.

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And these two women have been a mystery to us.

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So if we look at this picture and we try to analyze how they dress, This picture was taken somewhere between 1905 and 1909.

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Okay, 1905 and 1909.

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I mean, assuming...

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How old does he look like?

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He looks 17 to me, 18 to me.

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And then maybe, like, his eldest sister.

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Scheindler.

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Scheindler, who was born two years after Ludwig Harry. And then...

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Dvojra, maybe?

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Dvojra.

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And then we have this photo as well.

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The same analysis of her appearance and style and fashion.

233

It appears to be around 1929, 1930.

234

Can you turn this back?

235

Yes.

236

Oh, yeah, this is the one that has the Hebrew on the back.

237

And do you speak Hebrew?

238

Yiddish.

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Yiddish.

240

I'm not around.

241

Yeah.

242

The same alphabet, though.

243

I'm a bad Jew.

244

I'm sorry.

245

I don't think there's such a thing.

246

But there isn't a date on it.

247

But there is, at the stamp, it's a little cut.

248

Yeah.

249

It says Warsaw.

250

Oh, gosh.

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Cut off.

252

Oh, my God, it's so tantalizing, isn't it?

253

It's like being in a treasure hunt.

254

It's like being Indiana Jones with your own soul.

255

And this is Basha.

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This is Basha.

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Basha would be 35.

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She's writing to Sami, her nephew.

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My grandfather, Samuel.

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Yes, exactly.

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And her brother.

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Ludwig, his dad.

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Yes.

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I'm wishing you and Sami a mazel toiv.

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A sol and sein mit mazel mit glick.

266

I don't know this.

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Your sister Basha wishes you, your son Sammy, congratulations.

268

May you have good fortune and happiness.

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She sends you regards and kisses you from the depth of her heart.

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Now, my beloved brother, I ask that you send your dear mother news

271

and regards from your entire family

272

and a family picture from me your dear sister Basha gosh it is really loving the language is just

273

so I don't know mushy we are a mushy family we're

274

an easy cry the Garfin kills that's beautiful thank you I'm

275

so happy to have that translated so this says to me

276

that maybe there was correspondence that had been happening for many years wanting and those kinds of things.

277

Yes.

278

Ludwig leaves around 1910, and he goes to another country, which is, I think, a big decision in a family-wide.

279

I'll say it seems like he left his sisters and his mother,

280

a group of women, here alone.

281

That's a big choice.

282

That's a big move, obviously, for anyone to make, let alone to leave a family of women behind.

283

Yeah, I'm just wondering what happened to the other siblings, I'm wondering what happened to my great-great-grandmother.

284

Wondering, I'm left wondering.

285

Andrew wants to find out why his great-grandfather Ludwig and his wife Sara and son Sammy

286

might have decided to emigrate in 1910 and leave their Jewish community.

287

So he's meeting Polish historian Katarzyna Persson at the former synagogue in Kielce.

288

It's quite haunting, the energy of the place.

289

It feels like a lot has happened here.

290

It has not been used for worship since the Nazis desecrated the interior during World War II.

291

So these are the photos of the Jewish community here before the war.

292

Oh, wow.

293

So this building was built in early 20th century.

294

It served for 30 years as the place where people worship where they gathered

295

and really the center of the Jewish community of Kelso.

296

Over 30% of the city was Jewish.

297

So this truly was a very, very strong community.

298

Yeah.

299

So it's very likely that your family would have come here as well.

300

There's an aspect to this story that I find really...

301

compelling, I suppose, upsetting.

302

And it's my great-grandfather Ludwig and his choice to leave his family back here.

303

I guess I'm curious about the motivation for that choice.

304

A large wave of anti-Jewish violence happening in that period, in 1905 to 1907.

305

Right.

306

There is, in this part of Poland, which is part of the Russian Empire, You have a massive wave of 700 pogroms against Jews in various localities.

307

People are scared.

308

There's constant tension and constant fear in the air.

309

These are very violent, very difficult, very turbulent times, you may say.

310

I see.

311

There were more than a million and a half Jewish people in Poland when Andrew's great-grandparents were still living there.

312

And attacks on the Jewish community and their businesses by anti-Semitic mobs were frequent.

313

Over 3,000 were killed in pogroms.

314

So, thinking about a man who has a very young family, you would understand why he would want to leave

315

if he has a lot of people who are depending on him in many ways economically,

316

his mother and sisters, he may want to leave in order to provide for them more easily.

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To send money back and...

318

To send money back, absolutely.

319

Yeah, it's an impossible position, isn't it?

320

There's no easy route.

321

And I'm really curious about how families like mine survive.

322

Well, we found where they lived, so if you'd like to come and see it.

323

I guess so, yeah.

324

I would absolutely love that.

325

Thank you.

326

Wow.

327

We are here on the corner of two streets, Vesowa and Nicaa.

328

And these are the streets that your family was very closely linked to.

329

We have Uchaia, a great-great-grandmother, and her daughters.

330

They moved between rented rooms.

331

Okay.

332

Whatever they could afford.

333

Right.

334

So this is where the remaining Garfinkels would have lived?

335

Yes, it's the only building remaining which can trace back to your family.

336

We know for sure that they lived here.

337

And I imagine it was quite overpopulated, quite crowded, lots of people in close quarters.

338

It was quite poor, yes.

339

Yeah.

340

We know how the family made a living.

341

And you can find it here in this register.

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That's from 1913.

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It's from Wesoła, so the street which we just walked past.

344

What is this?

345

So this word, means a seamstress which most likely works in a factory.

346

Oh, I see.

347

So it's quite hard work, as you can imagine.

348

Oh, dearie me.

349

So my great-great-grandmother, At this time, in 1930, it was 58, and she was a seamstress.

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Devoire Garfinkel, 35 years old, seamstress.

351

And Esthera Garfinkel, 26, and a seamstress.

352

And all living together?

353

In one room or in a couple of rooms or...?

354

I would assume in one room.

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In one room.

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Yeah.

357

So that's two out of...

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Five.

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Five sisters?

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So there are three, Salana counted for, the eldest...

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Scheindler, yes.

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Scheindler?

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We don't know where she is.

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We don't know.

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We have no record of her.

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And then we have Basha, who we know from that photograph, at some point went to Warsaw.

367

So we know kind of-ish what she's up to, but there's no record here of Rukhla.

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The only sister on record, so far as we understand, to have married.

369

Is that maybe why she's not living here with her other sisters and her mum?

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Exactly.

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She'll be living with her husband.

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I have a document here.

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Is this an obituary?

374

No, what does this mean?

375

It's a death certificate.

376

That's Rukla Spielmann.

377

Okay, so that's my great-great-aunt's married name.

378

I can't tell, is it?

379

It's Portuguese.

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It's Portuguese?

381

Okay.

382

This is her.

383

Okay.

384

5th of June, 1963.

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She died at 50 years of age, Polish.

386

Married to Samuel Spielmann

387

Housewife she died in her home pulmonary edema congestive heart failure

388

My gosh place of burial to be buried in the Israeli cemetery in via Rosalie in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil

389

She leaves two sons of adult age,

390

João and Adolfo What is important about her also is that she married into a very important family The Spielmans?

391

Yes.

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Her husband was the first cousin of Wodzław Spielman.

393

Okay, I don't know much about that family.

394

It was a very musical family.

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Spielman was, of course, a famous pianist, survivor of the Wusser ghetto.

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Right.

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Then the author of a memoir, and later a famous film.

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The main character in The Pianist.

399

That's crazy.

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It's a fascinating family story.

401

That's absolutely wild.

402

So Ludwig was not the only child of this family to... To leave.

403

To leave Kjellze and to emigrate in search of some kind of better life, I suppose.

404

We have one more document which relates to the other sister.

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Okay.

406

Estera Garfinkel.

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What does this mean?

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It's another death certificate.

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A death certificate, okay.

410

Sorry, have a...

411

Yeah, okay.

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So, Estera, she died at age 33.

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23rd of June, 1935, here in Kieltsia.

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And her place of death...

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Is this street. Is here?

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Yeah.

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Spouse, no spouse.

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So, yeah, she wasn't married.

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Cause of death, general...

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That's wasting of muscles.

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Wasting of muscles.

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In 1935, the situation wasn't great.

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It was a lot of poverty.

424

Mm.

425

It was an economic crisis.

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We know she was unmarried.

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She still lived with her elderly mother.

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Right.

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My great-great-grandmother was still alive.

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She was still alive, yes.

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At that point.

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We have record of her from 1935.

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Taking care of her, I imagine.

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Yeah.

435

Gosh.

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And then Devoira.

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We don't know.

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We have no record of her.

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Just, but for the grace of God, you know, it's who knows the mystery of why one person ends up In Rio de Janeiro,

440

one person ends up in the east end of London.

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One person ends up dying here at the age of 33.

442

Whew.

443

Yeah.

444

Andrew has discovered that his great-great-aunt Rukla emigrated to Brazil with her husband, Schmoll Spielmann, and had two sons.

445

He's also discovered that his great-great-grandmother, Chaya, was living alone in Kieltsa after the death of her daughter, Estera, in 1935.

446

There are no records for the whereabouts of her other daughters, Scheindler, Bivora and Basha at this time.

447

Life was increasingly difficult for the Jewish community in the late 1930s.

448

The Polish government restricted their economic activity, calling for boycotts of Jewish businesses,

449

which in turn encouraged anti-Semitic violence from nationalist groups.

450

I have something else to show you.

451

Oh, I don't know if I can handle it.

452

It's been a heavy day.

453

But yes, this is why we're here.

454

Please show me whatever you want to show me.

455

The mean streets of Kjeldze.

456

Yes.

457

Hardcore.

458

The hardcore origins of my...

459

That's exactly where you're from.

460

Wow.

461

Okay.

462

I want to show you something.

463

Okay.

464

Look at this map.

465

Yeah.

466

This is the street we're on.

467

Yeah.

468

We're exactly here on this corner.

469

Okay.

470

And you know this area?

471

No, I don't.

472

This is the ghetto of Kielce.

473

So if Haya or any of her daughters that we can't account for who were in Kielce in 1941,

474

they were all forcibly moved into the ghetto.

475

Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.

476

And the following month, the Nazi regime began targeting the Jewish community and separating them into ghettos across Polish towns and cities.

477

The largest in Warsaw imprisoned almost half a million Jewish people in a handful of streets.

478

And in 1941, the Holocaust came to Kielce with construction of a Jewish ghetto in the town.

479

So that's where the ghetto wall would have been.

480

We have a picture here as well.

481

And that's that picture of people going to the ghetto.

482

What year is this?

483

It's 1941.

484

As you can see, they have those bags with whatever belongings they could take with them.

485

Very little.

486

And they're forced to move into their closed, horribly overcrowded ghetto area ghetto area.

487

So do we know, do we have any records or knowledge that any of my family members were still here in 1941?

488

My great-great-grandmother, my great-great-aunts, do we have any idea if they were in fact still here in Kielce?

489

We can't tell.

490

The story ends in 1935, as was often the case with Jewish records.

491

The vast majority of cases just simply disappeared in the ghetto.

492

There was no trace of them left.

493

It strikes me in this moment that if Ludwig Harry hadn't decided to to leave Kjelze

494

with with Sammy, with little Sammy You know my father would have never been born.

495

Yeah, I would have never been born.

496

My brother would have never been born I want to know I want to know exactly what happened.

497

I want to know exactly what each of these women went through

498

I'm just gonna call my dad quickly update him.

499

This is a lot to share Hi Hi.

500

Hi.

501

Can you hear me?

502

I can.

503

All right, so I have a lot to tell you.

504

OK.

505

1935 is the last record of this part of the family in Poland,

506

in Kielce, because where they were living

507

was literally across the street from the wall of what became the Kielce ghetto.

508

Oh, God.

509

I know this is a lot.

510

How you doing?

511

I feel good, sir.

512

Yeah, me too.

513

I'm with you.

514

So I haven't talked to you about Ruchler yet.

515

She married a Spielman.

516

Do you remember the movie The Pianist?

517

I do very well, yeah.

518

It's a great movie.

519

Ruchler married his cousin.

520

She married the cousin of that, of the guy that Adrian Brody played.

521

But also, Rukla, I saw her death certificate.

522

Oh, yeah.

523

She died in, I think, 1963.

524

Survived the Holocaust.

525

Good God.

526

But she got out.

527

She died in Rio de Janeiro.

528

Oh.

529

You're taking me from depths of despair to exhilaration.

530

It's like a roller coaster of emotion.

531

Yeah.

532

Wow.

533

Wow.

534

Yeah.

535

Yes, this is the story of our family.

536

It is a roller coaster.

537

This journey is really extraordinary.

538

Yeah.

539

Andrew has no further Polish records for his Garfinkel family.

540

So the only way to potentially find out more information is to track down any surviving family of Rukla.

541

The team genealogists has managed to find a surviving son, Adolfo, who is 92 years old now,

542

and living with his daughter Lydia in Florida.

543

But do they know anything about what happened to Rukla's mother,

544

his great-great-grandmother, Haya, and his great-grandfather's missing sisters, Scheindler, Devoira, and Basher?

545

Hello.

546

Hello.

547

Hi.

548

So, so crazy.

549

I've been learning so much about this side of the family that I had no idea.

550

Obviously, I didn't know that you guys existed.

551

You probably didn't know that I existed or that we were connected in any way.

552

We are so excited.

553

I would love to see a photograph of Rukhla, if you have one.

554

This is Rukhla with both sons.

555

That's amazing.

556

She was the most wonderful mother that somebody proved expect

557

because i'm just trying to fill in the holes of what you know about her siblings

558

or her mother that she was leaving behind

559

and you can see here the picture of my grandmother your

560

great grandfather's mother ruthless mother this was the mother of ruffle that's that's higher yes yes she She went to Brazil?

561

She went to Brazil?

562

What year did she come to Brazil?

563

1936. They were able to bring her with a lot of effort.

564

My grandfather had to sell his saxophone, and they were able to secure her.

565

And this is my father, and this is my uncle with her in Brazil.

566

Oh, my gosh. So...

567

So.. so Haya made it out of Kjelze?

568

Yep.

569

He did.

570

Oh, my gosh.

571

So this is a postcard photo of Barsha.

572

Wow!

573

Yes.

574

This is Barsha, another sister of her grandmother.

575

But I don't know what's happened to Barsha.

576

I, um.. but she was in.. she was in Warsaw.

577

Did Rukla ever talk about or hear a word from her other sisters?

578

I knew that she has two sisters married, living in Warsaw, and they wanted to come to Brazil.

579

Who were the two sisters that married and lived in Warsaw?

580

I don't know the names.

581

So just for me to be clear, there are two sisters, one of them is most likely Basia,

582

maybe Dvoira, maybe Scheindler, who were married and moved to Warsaw.

583

Yes, according to my father, they were well financially.

584

And my grandparents were trying very hard to bring them to us in Brazil.

585

So they tried their best.

586

But you couldn't get them to Brazil.

587

The visas for them to come was very difficult.

588

Brazil was not very fond of Jews, you know.

589

You were receiving letters from the two other sisters from Warsaw?

590

Yes.

591

They were communicating with Rukla.

592

There was an attempt to get them out of Warsaw, to bring them to Brazil.

593

It seemed to fail because of passport issues with the Brazilian government.

594

Yes.

595

But they stopped to receive letters.

596

They didn't correspond anymore.

597

This was a signal that they were dead.

598

Yeah, been murdered.

599

Been murdered during the Holocaust in Warsaw. So that's...

600

That's what, yeah, that's what we know.

601

Okay, okay.

602

The family believed that two of the Garfinkel sisters had their visas denied as a result of an anti-Semitic immigration policy

603

introduced by the government of President Zetulio Vargas in 1937, just one year after Andrew's great-great-grandmother,

604

Haya, made it to Brazil.

605

It's estimated that 16,000 desperate European Jews who were trying to flee the Holocaust had their visas for Brazil denied.

606

Now he knows the likely fate of at least two of his great-grandfather's sisters.

607

Andrew is travelling to a Holocaust memorial site at the former death camp of Treblinka in the northeast of Poland

608

This was the final destination for most of the surviving Jews

609

when the Kielsa and Warsaw ghettos were emptied by the Nazis We're arriving at Treblinka now,

610

so I'll let you know how that goes and I'll...

611

Hold tight.

612

Yeah.

613

So while you're in there, this is very important, but I'm holding your hand.

614

Yeah.

615

And your mother's holding her hand, and your brother.

616

Yeah.

617

Okay, especially if you're going to that place.

618

All right, sweetie, love you.

619

All right, bye.

620

Take care.

621

Bye.

622

Trablinka is now a place for collective remembrance for those who disappeared.

623

More than a million Holocaust victims have never been identified, and all of the records for those taken to this death camp

624

were deliberately destroyed by the Nazis along with the gas chambers.

625

Over 700,000 people are estimated to have been murdered here.

626

This is

627

a memorial stone for the Jews from Keelze.

628

that met their ultimate fate here in Treblinka, which

629

my great-grandfather's

630

three sisters we imagine had to have been murdered.

631

Scheindler, Dvoire and Barscher.

632

That their lives were deemed so valueless and they were...

633

Attempted, the Nazis attempted to erase even the memory of them, even their names, even any record of them.

634

and they had succeeded in a certain way.

635

They were just normal girls, they were just normal women that wanted a life, that wanted to live, to thrive.

636

But this journey that we've been on has,

637

um, has recovered my memory of them and my family's memory of them.

638

Very grateful for that.

639

Yeah.

640

Chandler.

641

Dvoira. And Basher.

642

I wish I had known you better.

643

I wish you peace.

644

Having learnt the identity and fate of his great-grandfather Ludwig Garfinkel's family in Poland, Andrew now wants to find out about Ludwig's wife,

645

his great-grandmother Sara's family, the Kupchiks.

646

Andrew knows they also came from Kielce, but emigrated long before the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust.

647

They went first to London and then to Los Angeles in America, where they changed their name to Cuba.

648

Okay, it's a little change of scenery.

649

We just landed in Los Angeles from from Treblinka, which is quite a culture shock.

650

I was born here in Los Angeles, and I've had a relationship with this place since then, but also since I started working here.

651

But I'm curious about my deeper roots here.

652

And from my understanding, it was my dad's great uncle,

653

Harry Kupchick, that was the first of the Kupchicks to emigrate from London to Los Angeles and set up shop here,

654

that's literally all I've got.

655

So I hope, I pray, that they made a good life here.

656

He's meeting Caroline Luce, an expert on the history of the Jewish community in LA at the Wiltshire Boulevard Temple.

657

Hi.

658

Hi, welcome.

659

So nice to meet you.

660

Thanks for having me.

661

Thank you.

662

Wow.

663

What an amazing room.

664

It's pretty dramatic.

665

So the murals were funded by the Warner family.

666

This dome was funded by one of the executives at MGM.

667

It kind of embodies a sort of Hollywood moment.

668

So, yeah, so I've been told that my great-great-uncle Harry Kupchak, Harry Kupchak, my great-grandmother Sara's younger brother,

669

was the first of my family to emigrate.

670

Yes, so this is a document you'd file after you had emigrated, expressing your interest in becoming a citizen.

671

Oh, wow, okay.

672

Does that say Hyman Kupin-stick, Kupin-stock?

673

Mm-hmm.

674

Harry Kupchak, age 23 years old, was born in Kielce, Russia,

675

Poland, on the 15th day of May, 1896.

676

Wow, I arrived at the port of New York on or about the 18th day of December, 1919.

677

Occupation, ladies tailor.

678

Mm.

679

Okay, so my dad had mentioned that he thought that the Kupchiks had a tailoring fashion kind of connection and background.

680

Because of the studios here in LA, they were attracting some of the trendiest designers and most skilled folks in the garment trades.

681

He comes into LA at a really exciting moment in the city, in part because Hollywood had become such a thriving industry.

682

80% of domestic film production was happening in LA by the time he arrives.

683

And we know your great-great-uncle Harry worshipped here.

684

This was a temple frequented by studio owners, and you can see how that might have helped build him reputation in Hollywood.

685

He was on that hustle culture.

686

He was on the grind.

687

He established a shop of his own on Hollywood Boulevard and later here in Beverly Hills, just right down the street.

688

And this was a time when Wilshire Boulevard was called the Fifth Avenue of the West.

689

Oh, my God.

690

Really in the hottest spot in town.

691

Dang, that's a proper store.

692

The Harry Cooper, a distinguished name for 20 years in Hollywood.

693

Mm-hmm.

694

Harry Cooper will feature creations by the foremost American designers of fashion for the American woman.

695

Mm-hmm.

696

That is a hot store.

697

Mm-hmm.

698

Yeah, he got out of kilter, that's for sure.

699

I love this, Harry.

700

Mm-hmm.

701

It's just very lovely to see a success story.

702

So he was the first, and he left England in 1919, so I guess I'm curious who came next and when.

703

We did find in the 1930 census some Coopers who had made their way to Los Angeles.

704

So yeah, looks like the family arrived in 1922, three years after Harry does the first recce.

705

Mm-hmm.

706

So Anna and Simon Cooper must be my...

707

great-grandmother Sarah's parents, so they must be my great-great-grandparents.

708

Mm-hmm.

709

And then these must be my great-grandmother, Sara's siblings, Jake, Gertrude, Morris, Alfred... and...

710

Marion.

711

So they're my great-great-aunts and uncles on the Koopchik side, or the Koopastic side, or the Koopa side. And, um...

712

Yeah, Sara's back in, I think, still in London, raising my granddad, Sammy.

713

So occupation, not tailor.

714

Salesman?

715

Yeah, my guess would be that Harry actually invited them to come join him

716

and work at the store as he tried to build it.

717

Oh, really?

718

Mm-hmm.

719

Come here, remake yourself, you can be anything you want to be, the world is your oyster, live how you want to live.

720

That's part of the romance and allure that LA has promoted and attracted from the beginning.

721

It was like that for my father, it was like that for me.

722

Okay, so then there's this Bernard Tabor, who I've never heard of, who seems to be a grandson of Anna and Simon.

723

Yeah, Bernard Tabor would have been the same generation as my granddad, Samuel, Sammy.

724

So I suppose Bernard and Sammy would have been cousins.

725

So, yeah, I don't.. but I've never heard anything about Bernard.

726

It's never.. curious about that, too.

727

Andrew has discovered that his great-great-grandparents, Simon and Anna Cooper, joined Harry in L.A.

728

And that his great-grandmother, Sarah's siblings, Jake, Gertrude, Morris and Alfred, also worked in the fashion business there.

729

And he's found out that his grandad, Sam's cousin, Bernard, emigrated as well.

730

The youngest brother of the siblings was Alfred Cooper, and the team genealogist to track down his daughter, Cathy, who still lives in L.A.

731

So Andrew is coming to meet her...

732

Hi.

733

Hi.

734

...and her cousin, Jan, to see what else they can share about her family's life in America.

735

Would you like to see some photos?

736

Yeah, I would like to see some photos.

737

So this picture, this is Grandma Cooper, my grandmother, and your great-great-grandmother.

738

Yes, grandmother.

739

And she continued to dress in a fashion that was comfortable for her from the old country.

740

But it's really still so elegant.

741

But did you see the stern look?

742

See, these spikes are coming out of her back.

743

And Sundays we would go over there, and she would, like, almost have a nervous breakdown, because she had a kosher kitchen.

744

We were too many kids, yeah.

745

She always, you know...

746

Disciplinarian?

747

Don't come into my kitchen, you little filthy rats.

748

But in Yiddish.

749

Yes, but in Yiddish.

750

But you got it.

751

You got the message.

752

The look in the eye, you know, it was like...

753

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

754

Grandma Cooper was the driving force moving the family from Poland to England.

755

And she knew that she couldn't take money, so she converted that into diamonds and hid them in her stockings.

756

And that paid the fare for everyone from Poland to England.

757

This is Aunt Gertrude, Uncle Harry's sister.

758

Gertrude is another sibling.

759

Yes.

760

She worked in Uncle Harry's store, and she was stunning.

761

Stunning.

762

She was glamorous.

763

When Harry opened his Beverly Hills store, it was the most glamorous store.

764

It was a big open,

765

almost like a ballroom, with a spiral staircase that was the center of attention of attention and a big chandelier above it.

766

And Aunt Gertie, who was often modeling the clothes,

767

would sweep down the staircase with her cigarette holder out to here,

768

and she could float and twirl that ball gown and be so elegant and beautiful.

769

So between Harry and my dad, they had all the stars from all ages.

770

I know Marilyn Monroe was a client of Uncle Harry.

771

Elizabeth Taylor came into the store when I was working, Ava Gardner.

772

Really?

773

Yeah.

774

Can I ask something?

775

I saw the name Bernard on a census showing the Kupchiks coming over from London to L.A.

776

He was the youngest child and he was 12.

777

Bernard was Aunt Sadie's son.

778

And this is Bernard with Grandma Cooper because Aunt Sadie sent him over

779

because she stayed in the U.K and later they sent for her to come to America.

780

Bernard's last name is still Cooper?

781

Taper.

782

Taper.

783

Bernard, in the U.S., had a fabulous education and became quite the scholar.

784

Bernard was a very successful journalist and writer.

785

He was an author.

786

He was an author and a very prominent person in the arts.

787

We Coopers don't do anything mediocre.

788

It's so wonderful hearing this that I come to this neurotic need to succeed.

789

I like this.

790

Those two, Kathy and Jan, are just...

791

The spirit is very full.

792

And, um, this Kupchick, like...

793

Like, drive out of poverty, out of difficulty, out of suffering, and into a life of we deserve.

794

the sunshine we deserve, uh, to have all of our family around us.

795

It's, um, it's very, very beautiful.

796

So now my interest has been kind of captured by my granddad's cousin, Bernard.

797

And at the beginning of this journey, I was hoping to find other ancestors,

798

other kind of family members that were drawn into the world of art and creativity,

799

And it seems like him as a journalist, as an author...

800

...was deeply connected to that world.

801

So I feel this kind of mysterious kinship there emerging...

802

...that I would like to know more about, I suppose.

803

Andrews comes to the Getty Art Museum to meet curator Anna Bottinelli.. to try

804

and find out more about Bernard's connection to the art world.

805

How are you?

806

Nice to meet you.

807

Nice to meet you.

808

Oh, God.

809

Have a chat today.

810

Yes.

811

Let me show you two photos.

812

This is Bernard Taper when he was a lieutenant with the US Army during World War II.

813

Okay.

814

Oh, wow.

815

In 1946, he was assigned on a special mission.

816

Okay.

817

And I have a document that might give you a little bit of an idea of what the special mission was about.

818

Office of Military Government for Germany, 8th July 1946.

819

Okay, so to go to Munich for approximately 30 days to conduct investigation of art looting activities

820

and search for lost cultural materials in Bavaria.

821

Okay, so he was on a special mission to investigate potential art looting.

822

Well, he joined the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Program of the Allied Army.

823

Does that ring a bell?

824

The Monuments Men.

825

There you go.

826

Yeah, wow.

827

Have you seen the movie?

828

I haven't seen the movie, actually.

829

I must now.

830

But I guess I heard it was wonderful.

831

Oh, that's wild.

832

He was one of those guys.

833

He was one of those guys.

834

That's so great.

835

So while World War II was happening and Germany was invading countries,

836

Hitler had this big plan of stealing art from all of the occupied countries and put them in his, what he called the Führer Museum.

837

And so he set up this art-loading machine, stealing works of art from all over Europe.

838

So here you can see, for instance, this is Hitler and Göring looking at one of the paintings.

839

This was specifically gifted to Hitler for his birthday.

840

Oh, it's so dark.

841

And here they are, shopping for art that's being taken from Jews that are being dispossessed of everything they own,

842

and this is just a birthday gift, one of too many.

843

Every aspect radiates evil.

844

The Monuments Men were a crack team of specialists, including art experts and museum curators,

845

who joined the US Army to track down these stolen pieces, hidden in castles and even salt mines in Germany and Austria.

846

Since you haven't seen Monuments Men, this is Monuments Men, George Stout, who's actually George Clooney in the movie.

847

So when you'll watch it, you'll know that his character is inspired by him.

848

What an amazing mission, treasure hunting.

849

What was the skill set that meant that Bernard was selected for this mission?

850

Well, he spoke and understood German, something that he taught himself listening to the radio.

851

How old was he at this point?

852

He was 28, but he was also a trained investigative journalist, and so he knew how to ask questions,

853

he knew how to get to the truth, he knew how to tell when someone wasn't telling the truth.

854

Oh, wow.

855

And he interrogated after the war the highest members of the Nazi party.

856

I just love the fact that he was selected to interrogate these war criminals, these murderers, these...

857

And just the kind of the poetic justice of that and his investment in that as a...

858

obviously as a jew and and as someone who benefited from his family escaping poland before

859

before world war ii on behalf of his family on behalf of those that were lost

860

and um extract extract the truth from these people that um

861

extracted

862

so much from his ancestry the fact the monuments men by

863

the end of their mission they had returned four million objects to the families that had been, not all of them survived,

864

but still they allowed to rebuild from something that belonged to them.

865

Yeah.

866

Would you like to see a work of art that Bernard's investigation helped recover?

867

Yeah, I would love that.

868

Come with me.

869

Okay, thank you.

870

Thank you.

871

Well, there are a few paintings in this museum with a connection with Bernard.

872

This is a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo, an Italian master.

873

Alexander the Great.

874

And it belonged to a Jewish collector in Paris.

875

It was thanks to Bernard that it was then returned 1947 eventually made its way to the Getty.

876

The restorative justice just feels really nice, doesn't it? For certain.

877

Well, this is something Bernard wrote after the war, that considering what you just said, I think it will resonate with you.

878

I was proud of the work that our MFA and A agency had done and remain proud.

879

Our efforts to try to tidy up in the world of art at any rate.

880

Oh, yeah.

881

Oh, dear.

882

Yeah.

883

In the world of art, at any rate, some small part of the epic mess that had been made seemed to me to have been meaningful behavior.

884

It was good, I thought, that amid all the sickening evidence of man's depravity and destructiveness,

885

Destructiveness I should have had the opportunity to help preserve some of the things mankind had done that one could not

886

That one could not only bear to contemplate but even take joy in

887

It doesn't get better than that what a beautiful writer God it's just like Yeah,

888

you weren't kidding that resonates Bernard,

889

in his words here, has clarified and reminded me of something about how I want to live, ultimately.

890

I'm sad this is over, actually.

891

Or maybe it's just beginning.

892

I couldn't have ended on a better note.

893

I mean, it's a story that has everything.

894

The story of the Garfinkels and the Kupchiks.

895

It's epic.

896

There's nothing missing.

897

It's a story of immigration.

898

It's a literal story of survival.

899

It's a story of escape.

900

It's a story of terrible tragedy and suffering.

901

It's a story of extermination and murder and death and loss.

902

And then with the Coopers here in LA, it's a story of elegance and beauty and art and...

903

the golden age of Hollywood and...

904

success and aspiration.

905

And then with Bernard, it becomes this story of this full circle of healing.

906

And I wasn't able to feel my belonging without my knowledge of them.

907

It's shining a light on all of the beauty and the longing and the desire for life that's come before me,

908

that actually lives in my bones, lives in my blood.

909

And it's like several great movies in the Garfinkel-Kupchik bloodline.

910

The End

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing Practice: Andrew Garfield’s Holocaust Family Story | Season 21 Episode 3 | Who Do You Think You Are - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?