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00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
00:18Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:21In this episode, we'll meet actor Lizzie Kaplan
00:24and comedian Hasan Minhaj,
00:27two people whose families have been shaped by immigration.
00:33I grew up seeing the sacrifice it takes
00:37to make the American dream possible.
00:40I have thought about, you know,
00:42what it would be like to be on a boat
00:46coming to a place where you knew nobody.
00:49Yeah.
00:50It's totally unimaginable.
00:53To uncover their roots,
00:54we've used every tool available.
00:58Genealogists comb through paper trails
01:00stretching back hundreds of years.
01:02Oh, this is incredible.
01:03I don't, how did you guys find this?
01:05While DNA experts utilize the latest advances
01:08in genetic analysis to reveal secrets
01:11that have lain hidden for generations.
01:13No way.
01:15And we've compiled it all into a book of life,
01:19a record of all of our discoveries,
01:22and a window into the hidden past.
01:26So you thought of yourself as Russian.
01:28Yeah.
01:29Did you ever think of yourself as Polish?
01:30No.
01:31You're Polish.
01:31Yeah.
01:33It's making me think about a lot of the decisions
01:36that I made in my life,
01:37and maybe that courage and conviction
01:40came from my ancestors.
01:42My two guests both descend from people
01:45who had to grow up fast,
01:47find their way across the globe,
01:49and build a new life in a new country.
01:52In this episode,
01:54we're going to retrace those journeys
01:56and recover what was lost along the way.
02:07Let's go.
02:12Oh, my God.
02:15I love you.
02:17I love you.
02:21I love you.
02:22Come on.
02:23I love you.
02:26I love you.
02:38Hasan Minhaj is on a roll.
02:41The Mercurial Comedian has won two Peabody Awards
02:45and garnered a legion of fans
02:48by blending stories about himself and his family
02:51with keen observations about Muslim life in America.
02:56My dad says, everybody down at the dinner table,
02:57and he's like, all right, Hasan, whatever you do,
03:00do not tell people you're Muslim,
03:01do not talk about politics.
03:03I was like, all right, Dad, I'll just hide it, cool.
03:05It's a brilliant act,
03:07and he's been refining it since he was a child.
03:11Growing up in Sacramento, California,
03:14Hasan was a class clown,
03:17often in trouble with his teachers,
03:19perhaps because his home life was quite restrictive.
03:25Hasan's mother had returned to India soon after his birth
03:28to finish her studies.
03:30So he spent his first eight years in the care of his father,
03:35a man who had a lot of rules.
03:39So how do you think that affected you?
03:42To me, that would be a nightmare.
03:43I mean, my parents are dead.
03:44I love you, Daddy, but I wanted my mama love you.
03:47Yeah, so, you know, with me and Dad,
03:50you know, look, Doctor, we can get into this,
03:51and I don't know if you do psychology,
03:53but the level of draconian law is pretty crazy.
03:57That's because he had a crazy kid.
03:59You know, you're out of control.
04:00Yeah, but no touching the thermostat,
04:02no video game consoles, no cable television.
04:05Oh.
04:06Oh, yeah.
04:07We're getting closer to...
04:08Oh, yeah, Sacramento.
04:09You know how hot Sacramento is, Doctor?
04:11It's incredibly hot.
04:12We can't touch the AC.
04:13There's oscillating fans in the house.
04:15Four oscillating fans don't touch the thermostat.
04:18So even though I lived in the suburbs,
04:21our house was like a trap house.
04:23Without all the fun of cooking cracker meth.
04:27You know, this is the type of man this guy was.
04:31Though Hassan didn't know it yet,
04:32his father would actually help launch his career.
04:36He started doing stand-up in college
04:39with material drawn from his family.
04:42But fearing that his parents wouldn't approve,
04:45he tried to conceal it.
04:48My mother and father did not know
04:49I was doing this at the time.
04:51Uh-huh.
04:51So if they didn't know, when did they know?
04:53They found out when I took my dad's car
04:56and I totaled it on the way to a comedy gig.
04:59Then, unfortunately, they found out.
05:00I said I was at the library,
05:02but I was on the way to Tommy T's Comedy Club
05:04in Pleasanton.
05:05How old?
05:06When was this?
05:07I'm like maybe a junior in college.
05:09Yeah, yeah.
05:10And my dad, I had to call my dad to come get me,
05:12and he goes, wow, we're about 40 miles from the library.
05:16You sure you're going to the library?
05:20With his secret out in the open,
05:23Hassan was able to devote himself fully to his craft.
05:28After college, he began releasing videos on YouTube,
05:32which led to a spot on The Daily Show
05:35and a breakout special on Netflix,
05:38featuring a routine that was largely focused on his childhood.
05:43The only problem?
05:45His parents still didn't know exactly what he was doing.
05:50Did you tell your parents about it
05:53before you let them see it?
05:55They came to the off-Broadway show in New York.
05:59So by the time it was up and running, they finally...
06:02So what was their reaction?
06:03Because it's about them.
06:05Yeah.
06:06Were they hurt?
06:08I would say...
06:12It's very complicated, because it's a lot.
06:14On one hand, they're proud.
06:19Like, I remember seeing my parents at the show.
06:21They're looking at other people to be like,
06:24wait, they're all here to see him?
06:25So they're acknowledging that.
06:27And then at the same time, there's a level of like,
06:31hey, why are you talking about this stuff?
06:33And why are you making it more dramatic?
06:36You're really hamming it up here for them,
06:39and why are you doing that?
06:41So there's all these layers to it,
06:43which is there is this simultaneous, like, wonder?
06:49Mm-hmm.
06:51Curiosity, awe, pride, and why do you have to do this?
06:57Yeah.
06:57It's like five different emotions.
06:59Do you center yourself because of that?
07:01A little bit.
07:02A little bit.
07:03There's some things that I will change or modify
07:06or cut or truncate.
07:08It would be too painful.
07:09It would be too painful, and also you just want, like,
07:12these are people that I love.
07:13You know, they're ultimately the people that I really love,
07:16and I want them to be happy.
07:18And we have so much else to fight about.
07:22It doesn't have to be about the act.
07:25My second guest is actor Lizzie Kaplan,
07:28who came to fame in the cult classic Mean Girls.
07:32Yes!
07:33Yes!
07:34Yes!
07:35Yes!
07:35Yes!
07:36Yes!
07:37Yes!
07:37Lizzie Kaplan, who started a career by crafting a series
07:40of unforgettable, offbeat characters.
07:45Oh, I'm sorry.
07:47Did you think that I was like those other girls?
07:49Lizzie is blessed with impeccable comic timing,
07:54but her own story begins in tragedy.
07:57As a child, Lizzie's world was turned upside down
08:02when she lost her mother to cancer.
08:06she was sick for a year uh it still was a great shock to everybody she was young she was
08:1350.
08:13can i ask you how you coped i can't imagine that losing my mother at that at that age not
08:19well i
08:20mean it's it's funny when when people lose a parent funny obviously not funny haha but when
08:26people lose a parent and you know everybody says oh that's such a horrible age i don't know when a
08:31good age would be uh if you're very small you never really have any lasting memories of that
08:37person that's its own tragedy and then for me i was 13 you know right on the cusp of womanhood
08:44like
08:45an adolescent and that was pretty bad that was a pretty bad time for it to happen i was very
08:51close
08:51with my mother all of my siblings were she definitely was the center of the family that kept everybody
08:58together and when she passed away we kind of all lost our way as a family for quite a while
09:07lizzie would ultimately find her way but it took more than a little luck
09:13soon after her mother's death she was accepted into an arts high school in los angeles
09:20she was supposed to study piano but lost interest so she switched to acting and discovered her calling
09:29i just liked it certain things came sort of easily to me learning lines and diving into
09:36a character um and i also think you know in retrospect i've i've thought about this that
09:43in my sort of angst ridden teenage brain i was actively trying to make sense of my mother's death
09:50why did this terrible thing happen to me and in my mind i mean i wanted nothing to do with
09:54doing
09:55comedy i was going to be a serious actress and shakespearean actress and i needed to have this
10:00like trauma and darkness and depth in order to access these parts of myself and i think honestly
10:07it probably got me through a lot of a lot of that time um because it was me just trying
10:13to like attach
10:14meaning to this horrible thing that happened and the way that i attached meaning to it was oh i need
10:19this
10:19darkness to pursue this acting thing lizzie may have been wrong about her future with shakespeare
10:28but she quickly found another outlet for her talents although her father had no connections
10:34to the entertainment industry she had an uncle who was a publicist so she turned to him for help
10:42and that would change her life forever he introduced me to
10:50this manager he knew but it was like the the lowest assistant on the totem pole of this tiny management
10:57company and this guy agreed to sort of represent me probably as a favor to my uncle right and i
11:03started
11:03going out for auditions and i just i started getting jobs but not anything like in my mind i was
11:10going to be
11:11the lead of the show and it was going to be like shot out of a cannon and it was
11:14not that it was you
11:16know my first job was one line girl number one in a pilot and it just gave me enough like
11:23not enough
11:24to be fulfilling but enough to like just keep going just keep going a little just a little see what
11:30happens see what happens and for whatever reason i never like doubted that that was going to be
11:35my thing and i i don't know i think probably only in recent years do i think oh okay maybe
11:41i
11:41maybe i i feel good about the work that i'm doing and maybe this was what i was supposed to
11:46do as
11:46opposed to like well i can't do anything else right i got no college education i have no plan b
11:50like what am i gonna do yeah um but i i also just genuinely love doing it i love it
11:57as much as i'd
11:58probably i mean more so than when i was a kid it just was an instant fit
12:03my two guests have been fortunate both have thrived in the public eye finding fame and
12:09fulfillment in the limelight but their family trees are filled with people whose stories have long
12:17lingered in obscurity it was time for that to change i started with hassan and with his father
12:33his father's father's job was never the most important thing in his life i went to his retirement
12:44party and his co-workers gave speeches and we cut costco sheet cake and then they were like thank you
12:51for
12:51the 35 years did he cry no he didn't cry but i was really moved because i i kind of
13:00looked at his
13:01office and his floor and i was like man like you know it's just a sea of cubicles it looks
13:08like the
13:09tv show severance hmm you know it's just a sea of cubes and i was like man my dad came
13:15here every day
13:15he took the light rail or the bus and he had this job that i'm sure he i know he
13:22did not like but he did
13:24that all for me wow and my sister and i see my dad still to this day as someone who
13:31is obviously
13:33extremely intelligent but has so much potential and um
13:40you know maybe i'm trying to pursue this path that i'm on and see my potential through in his honor
13:49because he really sacrificed a lot perhaps because of his sacrifices najami chose to focus on the future
13:59not on the past and rarely discussed the life he'd left behind in india
14:05we set out to recovery beginning in sheer coat the city in northern india where his mother's family
14:14has deep roots have you ever seen that photo no that photo was taken at your grandmother's house
14:26in sheer coat sometime around 1948 so that's two years before your father was born wow
14:36this is a beautiful place i mean like if you look at the the archway of that that's incredible well
14:44guess what your father told us that in the back of the house there were quarters to house elephants what
14:50yes and your aunt remembers that they owned two adult elephants and a baby elephant
14:57what do you mean they owned elephants they just had elephants yeah i mean like you have a dog you
15:02have a dog no i don't have a dog we have a rabbit they had elephants
15:12this is so weird because when i was a kid i asked my dad well my sister really wanted a
15:18dog
15:19and he was like no pets we have hassan and he he had a in his family they had elephants
15:26three two adults
15:28and a baby at the time that photograph was taken oh my god that's awesome that's really cool i think
15:36it's cool it's so cool we wanted to learn more about nudgeby's family but we faced a huge roadblock
15:45few historical records survive in northern india
15:48and those that exist are often difficult to locate because they like filing systems or indexes
15:57this problem is compounded by the fact that the widespread use of permanent surnames within india
16:03is relatively new and many unrelated families share the same surname because they were initially derived
16:12from trades or professions so doing genealogy in this part of the world can be extraordinarily tricky
16:21but we got lucky when we discovered that the surname of hassan's grandmother is begum which has unusual
16:29roots did you know that no begum is an urdu word with roots in a turkish word for princess
16:41and historically it was given to women who were the wife or daughter of a beg meaning a lord or
16:47a
16:47chieftain ever thought of your family as maybe having royal roots i know in your fantasy when you look
16:52in the mirror you see a prince but um you know i got cousins that have egos like that but
17:01i don't know if
17:02we we are related in that way well we didn't find any evidence that any of your ancestors were royalty
17:08except etymologically but it's certainly possible because of that that they were what's it like to think
17:14about that it's pretty incredible yeah and it's pretty
17:24amazing to
17:27just understand who you are and where you come from and
17:32what generations before may have been doing
17:35it is yeah riding around those elephants in the backyard elephants sir yeah
17:42though we couldn't connect huson's family to royalty
17:46we did uncover something fascinating huson's relatives told us that his great-grandfather
17:53a man named sibgit ullah was a prominent landowner
17:58and as we combed through the archives in his home region we uncovered a british publication
18:05that seemed to confirm this
18:09the town of dampur is the seat of several well-known families who own land
18:14mm-hmm muhammad sibgit ullah the principal shaykh resident of the place
18:21that name sound familiar that's my great-grandfather we can't be certain but we spoke with a scholar
18:28about this at length and we think this may be indeed your great-grandfather
18:34the names are similar and dampur is about five miles from shirkot
18:40wow and this is from a newspaper the biznor gazetteer yeah which is a geographical index yeah
18:46bijnor my dad has talked about bijnor just casually oh yeah when he talks about share
18:51code and bijnor but it just sounds like he's describing different regions from game of thrones
18:56i'm like i don't know what that territory is
19:01this index not only indicates that sibgit owned land it also describes him as being the principal
19:08shaykh of his town which was potentially a very significant find the term shaykh refers to a social
19:18class of muslims in northern india a group that claims arab descent through the prophet muhammad
19:26and two of the founding caliphs of islam abu bakar and omar did you ever think you might have arabic
19:34roots
19:37no what's it like to think of that possibility
19:43that's um you know in our faith the prophet muhammad peace be upon him and um abu bakar and omar
19:53the
19:54khalifa are extremely important in our faith yeah and they're like the tent poles of
20:05what became islam and the spread of islam around the world so
20:09mm-hmm no this is um this is extremely um
20:23very powerful and very um
20:30i had no idea
20:32there were no records to test this theory so we turn to dna while most modern day indians do not
20:42have any genetic ties to the arab world hassan's admixture reveals that 2.3 percent of his dna
20:51comes from west asia which includes what is now iran and 0.3 percent comes from the arabian peninsula
21:03that is a significant result so you have a dna connection to iran and to the arab world
21:13for most other indians oh wow so what's it like to learn this yeah this is very powerful stuff uh
21:21both
21:21spiritually and historically yeah what's your father going to say oh he's gonna he's gonna love this this
21:29is gonna blow my dad's mind this is gonna mean i i can't i cannot tell you this is gonna
21:34mean so
21:34much to my my family means so much to me we had one more detail to share with hassan
21:42it concerns what's called the first battle of paniput the battle was fought near the city of delhi in april
21:51of
21:511526 and marked the start of the mogul empire the last islamic empire to rule india
22:00it's a seminal event memorialized in countless poems and paintings and you may well have had an
22:10ancestor who fought in that battle
22:15it's pretty cool
22:16yeah this is a wild painting yeah it's totally wild there's like guys on horseback there's a dude
22:27getting beheaded but it's very beautiful that the painting is very beautiful but what's it like to
22:33think of that possibility and to be introduced to the complexity of your genetic makeup i mean it's
22:40surreal this is one of the most epic stories of you know the greater indian subcontinent and its history
22:47yeah when you go to delhi you can still see those old mogul forts yeah so to know that we
22:53have a
22:53connection to that is pretty epic does it change the way you you see your father 100 yeah yeah this
23:03is uh
23:12this is um
23:21yeah there's a level of depth to this that i did not anticipate much like husson lizzie caplan was about
23:31to discover a hidden depth to her family the story begins on her mother's side with lizzie's great
23:39grandfather a man named abraham miadovnik abraham was born sometime around 1892 in what was then the
23:51russian empire but he didn't stay in russia for long we found him in new york city when he was
23:5919
23:5918 years old applying for american citizenship that's amazing that's amazing 19.
24:17that's crazy what's it like to see that
24:25i've tried to you know imagine what that would you know i haven't spent a ton of time trying to
24:31imagine it but i have thought about you know what it would be like to be on a boat coming
24:38to a place
24:38where you knew nobody not a soul and for whatever reason i never imagined it as a 19 year old
24:47kid and i know
24:4919 19 was different than it is now but man i just like children having to make these monumental
25:00decisions it's wild we don't know what motivated abraham to come to america but that decision forever
25:09altered his life and we found the passenger list of the ship that brought him here
25:14giving lizzie a glimpse of her ancestor at that crucial moment name in full abram
25:25miadovnik nationality russia race or people hebrew whether in possession of 50 and if less how much
25:35three dollars where they're going to join a relative sister anna miadovnik new york 16 east 118th street
25:48that is abraham arriving in the united states of america
25:53so does this say he had three dollars yep
26:01it says do you have at least 50 the answer no how much do you have i have three dollars
26:07you came
26:08here with three bucks unreal i mean
26:17yeah i don't even like how do you even you make this decision because you have no other choice i
26:23suppose
26:23many situations but that i mean just the the idea that he was coming to join his sister who i've
26:32never
26:32heard of and even just the the correspondence that would be required to make those plans and how long
26:39that would take and how i mean it's it's crazy i keep saying that but it's crazy it's crazy
26:47we now set out to learn about abraham's life before he immigrated lizzie had long been told that her
26:55mother's ancestors were russian jews but that was not exactly true at the time of abraham's birth
27:04russia was a vast empire covering much of eastern europe and abraham's hometown was a village called
27:14zawierke it lies on land that we no longer consider to be russian
27:21have you ever heard of this place no that is your family home it's located in the south of modern
27:27day
27:27poland huh so you you've thought of yourself as russian yeah did you ever think of yourself as polish
27:34no you're polish yeah you're gonna visit yeah yeah booking my i'm booking my flight you got deep roots
27:42there i know when lizzie visits abraham's hometown she will likely find few traces of the world hindu
27:53as it was almost completely obliterated by wars in the first half of the 20th century
27:59but in the poli state archives we found documents that helped bring abraham's world briefly back to
28:08life on the 24th of august 1890 came in benjamin miadovnik baker from the village of zawierke 33 years old
28:20and presented a male infant stating that he was born in zawierke on august 17th of this year
28:28to his lawful wife dobra zizla the child was circumcised and given the name abram libe
28:36that is your great-grandfather's birth certificate
28:421890 crazy yep and benjamin and dobra are your great great grandparents you have dna from these
28:51people this is your biological kin and we're back in poland over 130 years ago what's it like to see
28:58that
28:58yeah i mean look i'm sure he'd be thrilled to share the information that he was circumcised on
29:04television 130 years later yeah it's it's it's like i yeah in a village he was a baker it's just
29:13this is
29:13like did you know you had any bakers in the family no although i could have guessed can you bake
29:18yeah of
29:19course okay abraham's parents benjamin and dobra were married in 1883 by 1900 they had had at least
29:32six children together but their happiness didn't last dobra died on august 23rd 1900 six days after
29:44giving birth wow dobra was just 40 years old and she left seven children behind including a newborn baby
29:55can you imagine no of course not i mean no i don't even know like what is a baker i
30:10i hope that there
30:11was other family around i'm also just thinking about this yeah abe abe being so young and losing his mom
30:19oh abraham lost his mother when he was just 10 years old he was three years younger than you
30:25when you lost your mother how do you imagine this loss affected him
30:31i imagine that there probably wasn't a lot of time to
30:36talk about how it affected him at the time
30:40i imagine that would be very very lonely yeah and how about dobra's husband benjamin yeah how do
30:47you think he coped he was left alone with seven children including a newborn baby i know how i mean
30:53but yeah as i mean women i'm sure you know dying in childbirth yeah i have never really thought that
31:01through that the infant is then left with the father in 1900 how i don't know how you would cope
31:11how
31:12one would cope i can't even imagine uh completely can't imagine there is of course no way to know how
31:19benjamin processed his loss but we do know that he moved on soon after dobra's death he remarried and
31:29transplanted his family to the town of chetstehova about 30 miles away your great-grandfather abraham
31:37would leave for america from there in the summer of 1906. wow he likely never saw his father again
31:47what do you think that was like for him i just i can't even begin to fathom what that family
31:56relationship would be like with all of those kids um very limited resources i mean who knows you can
32:05only like speculate what he thought about his own mother let alone this stepmother um
32:15maybe it was lovely and it was horrible to leave and maybe it was horrible and it was a great
32:19escape
32:20i'm out of here yeah i mean who could never never know wow lizzie let's just take a moment to
32:27think
32:27about the sheer magnitude of your great-grandfather abraham's decision to move to the united states
32:33with how much in his pocket three dollars three dollars that singular brave decision completely changed
32:41his fate and by extension your fate yep think about what could have happened okay he decided uh i don't
32:49speak english i ain't got no money you know i like uh the vodka here you know what's it like
32:58to realize
32:58that to think about that you know two roads diverge in the yellow wood you know that's it right it's
33:06you
33:07are the product of a bunch of decisions made by people that you've never met before it's impossible
33:14not to think that there's some kind of cosmic plan or fate or something and even if it's all just
33:22random
33:22it's still miraculous we'd already traced hassan minaj's father's roots revealing a surprising connection
33:32to islamic india in the 1500s now turning to his mother's family we found a surprise in the much
33:42more recent past the story begins with hassan's grandmother a woman named toseef rizvi hassan remembers
33:52her as a stern but loving disciplinarian who rarely spoke about her own childhood and we think we know
34:02why toseef was born in marat a district in northern india her parents were farmers but she wasn't raised
34:13by her parents instead soon after her birth she was adopted by her mother's childless elder sister
34:23so you're telling me my grandmother toseef rizvi was raised by her aunt wow
34:34she was a sign in trade like in the nba and you've never heard this story before
34:39no i've never heard this story before it's like a fairy tale yeah
34:44this adoption would affect toseef in ways her family never could have predicted at the time india
34:52was a colony of great britain ruled by a government informally known as the raj and toseef's aunt
35:00was married to a doctor who spent much of his career working for the raj including two terms
35:07in a government-run jail we found a description of the jail offering a glimpse into toseef's
35:16highly unusual childhood the district jail is at ray barely and civil lines it was formed out of some
35:25of the abandoned barracks and is somewhat larger than most of the oudh jails having been originally
35:31designed as a divisional jail it is as usual under the charge of the civil surgeon according to your
35:39family your grandmother and her parents lived in a government house next to the jail with inmates
35:45doing chores in their home and even growing their vegetables this explains why she was so strict with
35:50me that could be your grandmother never talked about this never talked about this no do you know
35:57what civil lines refers to i have no idea well under the rise civil lines were areas within cities where
36:02the british civil administration resided where the white people lived british officers and administrators
36:09lived within them in european style bungalows same in africa tea was served on verandas and leisure
36:16activities included horseback riding and of course cricket and the only indians permitted to live in civil
36:22lines or household staff or high-ranking indian officials such as judges and doctors so your family
36:30was living alongside the british in these compounds wow so what do you think that was like for your
36:36grandmother i could only imagine that i mean for my for my nani code switching and going between two
36:43worlds and trying to understand how to navigate both
36:49certainly probably shaped her understanding of how to survive and make it um she definitely made
36:59sure that on my mom's side everybody was extremely educated so i'm sure that living within these civil
37:06lines shaped perhaps her emphasis on education like this is the way you make it and this is how you
37:13succeed
37:15hassan is not alone in his opinion of toseef his family gave us a poem that she memorized as a
37:23child
37:24it was written by her adoptive father and recited by her at a school function to mark the departure of
37:32one of her teachers antiquated yet entertaining the poem shows her immense enthusiasm for her own education
37:44this news is dreadful what will happen to me after your departure you are indeed leaving but please
37:49forgive me if i was ever insolent after receiving your guidance i understand the teacher-student
37:55relationship once respectful manners are learned a little jest is allowed who will now teach arithmetic
38:00algebra and history like you examinations are near and you are no longer here remember this always it is
38:07praise for you my writing is a small token of appreciation so this this is two things like to me
38:15number one
38:16you know kudos to her guts to stand up on stage sure um number two this is definitive proof
38:29that indians in our dna are teachers pets this is the most overachieving pick me
38:36can i get extra credit dear professor energy which is why it's so crazy that i'm a comedian like this
38:43is this is the you know this is this is in my blood your family told us that your grandma
38:47could still recite
38:48that poem from memory at the age of 93. yes that's amazing yeah how does it feel to read this
38:55is that
38:55the first time you've read it this is the first time i've read it this is the second time i've
38:59heard
38:59it the first time my uncle performed oh that's cool and it was really beautiful to hear him perform
39:03it did you know that your grandmother went to a high school that had only 10 female students
39:10no she studied arithmetic english hindi history geography and urdu and even played badminton
39:18i didn't know i didn't know that yeah yeah because by the time you know i got to know her
39:22she was
39:24she was a small you know the way all grandmothers are she was just a glove jacket at that point
39:29you
39:29know she's like a small cute little round babushka she graduated in 1946 and then went back to sunota
39:36and where she married your grandfather in 1950. wow she had a tumultuous childhood but she persevered
39:43and thrived you feel a connection i feel a huge connection to her and she um regularly during my
39:51birthdays would give me money for my birthday present but it could only be used to buy something
40:02that would help me in my pursuits so she helped me buy my first macbook pro that i edited my
40:09first
40:09oh yeah yeah so that's because of my oh that's my grandmother yeah we had one more story to share
40:16with huson returning to toseef's hometown in merut we were able to trace her husband's roots back two
40:25generations and place huson's ancestors at ground zero for what's often called india's first war of
40:34independence a troop rebellion against the british that led to uprisings across the nation though it
40:43was ultimately crushed the rebellion lives on in memory even to this day and it began in merut
40:54so how does it feel to know that you have ancestors your third great grandparents who may have been
40:59there at the very start it's really powerful and um i'm out here complaining when the wi-fi goes down
41:08but in all seriousness it's like i can only imagine what they witnessed and what they
41:13went through and saw in their life and um it makes me feel really proud and i feel um really
41:31overwhelmed with gratitude and humility that this is my family and i'm lucky enough to be their great
41:38great great great grandson we'd already traced lizzie kaplan's mother's roots from poland to new york
41:47revealing how her great grandfather abraham came to america we now turn to a darker side of this story
41:57in 1926 abraham's younger brother a man named wolf miadovnik moved from poland to belgium
42:07likely hoping to find the kind of opportunities that had drawn abraham to the united states
42:14but those hopes would be dashed on may 10th 1940 belgium was invaded by nazi germany
42:24wolf was 30 years old at the time his wife liba was 23. can you imagine no genuinely no
42:36um just what a terrifying time did you ever think you had a personal familial connection to this
42:43i thought maybe it was odd that i didn't but um so i i guess it's with all of the
42:54siblings it's it's not
42:55completely surprising but i do you know growing up it was my friends whose grandparents had survived the
43:01holocaust and we were very aware of who those grandparents were and my grandparents were not
43:05in that group so this is news to me wolf and liba are lizzie's great-granduncle and aunt and though
43:14the details of their story were not passed down its outlines would prove painfully familiar
43:23after the german invasion they watched helplessly as the nazis began seizing jewish property
43:30and implementing anti-semitic laws then in march of 1944 just months after the birth of their first
43:39child the family was arrested and their situation became unimaginably worse they were sent to a transit
43:49camp in northern belgium called mechelen and then they were put on a train called transport number 24
43:5824 and guess where transport number 24 was heading i uh god i where i don't even where where
44:12please turn the page
44:16yeah auschwitz yeah i had no idea i had relatives in auschwitz
44:23oh yeah it's it's so awful
44:29and you see like in these pictures which i've seen so many times so many kids and
44:36yeah it's uh it is different when it's your own and you know it's your own people family
44:46roughly 1.1 million people were murdered in auschwitz the vast majority were killed upon arrival in gas
44:55chambers the rest were consigned to slave labor and generally died of starvation or disease
45:05precise records were not kept but the fates of the people on transport 24
45:11are set down in what's known as the auschwitz chronicle a documentation of daily life in the camp
45:19written by a polish historian most were immediately sent to the gas chambers a small percentage were
45:27selected for labor and none of the 54 children who were on this transport
45:32appeared to have been admitted to the camp so you know what that means
45:36oh my god that's so horrible yeah that's so horrible
45:49i just i yeah i don't know how you exist in that much fear and then
45:53i don't know how you recover from or forget recover but like go on from
45:59that well and what would be worse if they
46:03if they were selected to work or if they were i don't know how i mean somebody takes your baby
46:08from
46:08i just you know ripping the baby out of your arms wolf's six-month-old son benjamin was likely killed
46:14immediately upon arrival and since he was so young could not walk his mother leba would have likely
46:21gone to her death alongside him just to carry him in uh you two go this way take your baby
46:33and you lure them
46:36in yeah and i'm god it's so it's like it's like such a uh there's no good outcome here no
46:48matter what
46:48i'm glad though to hear they were together mother and son with his family dead wolf entered auschwitz on
46:59his own incredibly he would survive for more than eight months only to face another horrifying ordeal
47:10in january of 1945 with the war almost over and russian armies advancing across poland
47:19the nazis were desperately trying to cover up their crimes
47:24auschwitz was abandoned and wolf was eventually transferred to bergen belson a notorious concentration
47:32camp in northern germany from there he was shipped some 400 miles south to dachau yet another camp
47:44so how do you think wolf found the strength to keep going i don't know
47:49that's just human will to survive because like what is this life
47:56why would you want to keep going just like shuttled from one of these
48:02horror shows to the next it's and just think of the terror that's it right yeah constant constant
48:10terror with no end in sight i'd yeah they were they were tougher than we were than we are
48:23dachau was liberated on april 29th 1945 almost two months after wolf arrived he was likely emaciated
48:35and very close to death but as it turns out wolf had a great deal more life left in him
48:43after the war wolf returned to belgium where he married a fellow holocaust survivor
48:50they welcomed a daughter in 1949 and then three years later moved one final time to america
49:00wolf meadow nationality stateless race hebrew age 41 final destination in united states mr charles meadow 1138
49:13wooster street god it's so crazy to see just like the map of the concentration camps and then
49:24wooster in la like that's crazy yeah
49:32yeah that's
49:35that's pretty nuts that's a miracle it is
49:42absolutely
49:46wolf was 42 years old when he arrived in the united states
49:53incredibly he had survived at least four concentration camps and lost a wife and a child
50:01as well as countless friends and relatives
50:04but he was able to build a new life for himself a life that would be celebrated right up until
50:12the end
50:13as evidenced even by his grave
50:18wolf wolf wolf lived to be 93 years old nice wolf
50:24he died november 10th 2003 and is buried along with his second wife mala in coma california just outside
50:34of san francisco golden mensch how about that i love it
50:42what's it
50:42what's it like to see that oh this makes me so happy
50:46because like he's got little funny things on his yeah on his tombstone like that's
50:53he was loved yeah
50:57they both were oh my god this is amazing
51:01the paper trail had now run out for lizzie and huston it was time to unfurl their full family trees
51:10now filled with people whose names they'd never heard before that's incredible for each it was a moment of all
51:17wow
51:19offering the chance to reflect on the sacrifices
51:22that shaped their families and forged their identities
51:28when you see your parents struggling and working hard and clipping out coupons
51:34you don't think you're someone or from somewhere you know you just think you're scrapping by and surviving
51:42but when you see stuff like this you're like maybe i'm part of something bigger
51:46the only way that i'm sitting here now is because of the decisions that they were either forced to make
51:50or that they chose to make and i feel
51:55very lucky like in the dictionary definition of the word lucky that they made those decisions
52:04that's the end of our journey with hassan minaj and lizzie caplan
52:10join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests
52:15for new guests on another episode of finding your roots
52:20your friends
52:20you
52:21you
52:21you
52:21you
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