- 5 hours ago
Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr
- Season 12 Episode 4 - The Road We Took
- Season 12 Episode 4 - The Road We Took
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00:00Viewers like you make this program possible. Support your local PBS station.
00:15I'm Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Welcome to Finding Your Roots.
00:21In this episode, we'll meet actor Lizzie Kaplan and comedian Hasan Minhaj.
00:27Two people whose families have been shaped by immigration.
00:34I grew up seeing the sacrifice it takes to make the American dream possible.
00:40I have thought about, you know, what it would be like to be on a boat coming to a place where you knew nobody.
00:49Yeah.
00:50It's totally unimaginable.
00:52To uncover their roots, we've used every tool available.
00:58Genealogists comb through paper trails stretching back hundreds of years.
01:02Oh, this is incredible. I don't, how did you guys find this?
01:05While DNA experts utilize the latest advances in genetic analysis to reveal secrets that have lain hidden for generations.
01:14No way.
01:15And we've compiled it all into a book of life, a record of all of our discoveries, and 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.
01:32Yeah.
01:32It's making me think about a lot of the decisions that I made in my life, and maybe that courage and conviction came from my ancestors.
01:42My two guests both descend from people who had to grow up fast, find their way across the globe, and build a new life in a new country.
01:52In this episode, we're going to retrace those journeys and recover what was lost along the way.
02:30Hassan Minhaj is on a roll.
02:42The mercurial comedian has won two Peabody Awards and garnered a legion of fans by blending stories about himself and his family with keen observations about Muslim life in America.
02:55My dad sits everybody down at the dinner table, and he's like, all right, Hassan, whatever you do, do not tell people you're Muslim, do not talk about politics.
03:03I was like, all right, Dad, I'll just hide it.
03:04Cool.
03:05It's a brilliant act, and he's been refining it since he was a child.
03:10Growing up in Sacramento, California, Hassan was a class clown, often in trouble with his teachers, perhaps because his home life was quite restrictive.
03:22Hassan's mother had returned to India soon after his birth to finish her studies, so he spent his first eight years in the care of his father, a man who had a lot of rules.
03:37So how do you think that affected you?
03:42To me, that would be a nightmare.
03:43I mean, my parents did.
03:45I love you, Daddy, but I wanted my mama love you.
03:47Yeah, so, you know, with me and Dad, you know, look, Doctor, we can get into this, and I don't know if you do psychology, but 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, no 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.
04:15There's four oscillating fans, don't touch the thermostat.
04:19So even though I lived in the suburbs, our house was like a trap house without all the fun of cooking crack or meth.
04:27You know, this is the type of man this guy was.
04:30Though Hassan didn't know it yet, his father would actually help launch his career.
04:37He started doing stand-up in college with material drawn from his family.
04:42But fearing that his parents wouldn't approve, he tried to conceal it.
04:48My mother and father did not know I 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 and I totaled it on the way to a comedy gig.
04:59Then, unfortunately, they found out.
05:00I said I was at the library, but I was on the way to Tommy T's Comedy Club in 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.
05:17You sure you're going to the library?
05:18With his secret out in the open, Hassan was able to devote himself fully to his craft.
05:28After college, he began releasing videos on YouTube, which led to a spot on The Daily Show
05:35and a breakout special on Netflix featuring a routine that was largely focused on his childhood.
05:43The only problem, his parents still didn't know exactly what he was doing.
05:50Did you tell your parents about it before you let them see it?
05:54They came to the off-Broadway show in New York.
06:00So by the time it was up and running, they finally...
06:02So what was their reaction?
06:04Because it's about them.
06:05Yeah.
06:06Were they hurt?
06:07Or I would say it's very complicated because it's a lot.
06:15On one hand, they're proud.
06:18Like I remember seeing my parents at the show.
06:22They're looking at other people to be like, wait, they're all here to see him?
06:25Right.
06:26So they're acknowledging that.
06:27Right, right.
06:28And then at the same time, there's a level of like, hey, why are you talking about this stuff?
06:33Yeah, right.
06:33And why are you making it more dramatic?
06:35You know, like you're really hamming it up here for them and why are you doing that?
06:41So there's all these layers to it, which is there is this simultaneous like wonder, curiosity, awe, pride, and why do you have to do this?
06:57Yeah.
06:57It's like five different emotions happening.
06:59Do you center yourself because of that?
07:02A little bit.
07:02A little bit.
07:03There's some things that I will change or modify or cut or truncate.
07:08It would be too painful.
07:09It would be too painful.
07:10And also you just want like, these are people that I love.
07:14You know, they're ultimately the people that I really love and I want them to be happy.
07:18And we have so much else to fight about.
07:20It doesn't have to be about the act here.
07:25My second guest is actor Lizzie Kaplan, who came to fame in the cult classic Mean Girls.
07:33And has built a remarkable career by crafting a series of unforgettable, offbeat characters.
07:43Oh, I'm sorry.
07:47Did you think that I was like those other girls?
07:50Lizzie is blessed with impeccable comic timing.
07:54But her own story begins in tragedy.
07:58As a child, Lizzie's world was turned upside down when she lost her mother to cancer.
08:06She was sick for a year.
08:09It still was a great shock to everybody.
08:12She was young.
08:12She was 50.
08:14Can I ask you how you coped?
08:15I can't imagine losing my mother at that age.
08:19Not well.
08:20I mean, it's funny when people lose a parent.
08:24Funny, obviously.
08:25Not funny, ha ha.
08:26But when people lose a parent and, you know, everybody says, oh, that's such a horrible age.
08:30I don't know when a good age would be.
08:34If you're very small, you never really have any lasting memories of that person.
08:37That's its own tragedy.
08:39And then for me, I was 13, you know, right on the cusp of womanhood, like an adolescent.
08:46And that was pretty bad.
08:48That was a pretty bad time for it to happen.
08:50I was very close with my mother.
08:52All of my siblings were.
08:53She definitely was the center of the family that kept everybody together.
08:59And 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.
09:10But it took more than a little luck.
09:14Soon after her mother's death, she was accepted into an arts high school in Los Angeles.
09:19She was supposed to study piano, but lost interest.
09:24So she switched to acting and discovered her calling.
09:29I just liked it.
09:30Certain things came sort of easily to me.
09:33Learning lines and diving into a character.
09:37And I also think, you know, in retrospect, I've thought about this, that in my sort of angst-ridden teenage brain, I was actively trying to make sense of my mother's death.
09:51Why did this terrible thing happen to me?
09:53And in my mind, I mean, I wanted nothing to do with doing comedy.
09:56I was going to be a serious actress and Shakespearean actress.
09:58I needed to have this, like, trauma and darkness and depth in order to access these parts of myself.
10:05And I think, honestly, it probably got me through a lot of that time.
10:11Because it was me just trying to, like, attach meaning to this horrible thing that happened.
10:17And the way that I attached meaning to it was, oh, I need this darkness to pursue this acting thing.
10:25Lizzie may have been wrong about her future with Shakespeare.
10:28But she quickly found another outlet for her talents.
10:33Although her father had no connections to the entertainment industry, she had an uncle who was a publicist.
10:40So she turned to him for help.
10:42And that would change her life forever.
10:47He introduced me to this manager he knew, but it was, like, the lowest assistant on the totem pole of this tiny management company.
10:58And this guy agreed to sort of represent me probably as a favor to my uncle.
11:02Right.
11:03And I started going out for auditions.
11:05And I just, I started getting jobs.
11:08But not anything, like, in my mind, I was going to be the lead of the show.
11:12And it was going to be, like, shot out of a cannon.
11:14And it was not that.
11:15It was, you know, my first job was one line, girl number one, in a pilot.
11:20And it just gave me enough, like, not enough to be fulfilling, but enough to, like, just keep going.
11:28Just keep going a little.
11:29Just a little, see what happens, see what happens.
11:30And for whatever reason, I never, like, doubted that that was going to be my thing.
11:36And I don't know.
11:38I think probably only in recent years do I think, oh, okay, maybe I feel good about the work that I'm doing.
11:44And maybe this was what I was supposed to do as opposed to, like, well, I can't do anything else.
11:48Right.
11:48I got no college education.
11:49I have no plan B.
11:50Like, what am I going to do?
11:51Yeah.
11:51But I also just genuinely love doing it.
11:57I love it as much as I'd probably, I mean, more so than when I was a kid.
12:00It just was an instant fit.
12:03My two guests have been fortunate.
12:06Both have thrived in the public eye, finding fame and fulfillment in the limelight.
12:12But their family trees are filled with people whose stories have long lingered in obscurity.
12:19It was time for that to change.
12:23I started with Hassan and with his father, Najmeen Minaj.
12:29Najmeen immigrated to the United States when he was 31 years old, seeking work as a chemist.
12:36But Hassan believes that his father's job was never the most important thing in his life.
12:43I went to his retirement party and his co-workers gave speeches and we cut Costco sheet cake.
12:49And then they were like, thank you for the 35 years.
12:53Did he cry?
12:55No, he didn't cry.
12:56But I was really moved.
12:58Because I kind of looked at his office and his floor.
13:05And I was like, man, like, you know, it's just a sea of cubicles.
13:08It looks like the TV show Severance.
13:10Hmm.
13:11You know, it's just a sea of cubes.
13:13And I was like, man, my dad came here every day.
13:16He took the light rail or the bus.
13:19And he had this job that I'm sure he, I know he did not like.
13:24But he did that all for me.
13:25Wow.
13:26And my sister.
13:26Mm-hmm.
13:27And I see my dad still to this day as someone who is obviously extremely intelligent, but has so much potential.
13:36Mm-hmm.
13:36And, you 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.
13:52Perhaps because of his sacrifices, Najimy chose to focus on the future, not on the past, and rarely discuss the life he'd left behind in India.
14:05We set out to recover it, beginning in Sheerkote, the city in northern India, where his mother's family has deep roots.
14:18Have you ever seen that photo?
14:21No.
14:22That photo was taken at your grandmother's house in Sheerkote sometime around 1948.
14:31So that's two years before your father was born.
14:34Wow.
14:36This is a beautiful place.
14:39I mean, like, if you look at the archway of that, that's incredible.
14:44Well, guess what?
14:45Your father told us that in the back of the house, there were quarters to house elephants.
14:49What?
14:50Yes.
14:51And your aunt remembers that they owned two adult elephants and a baby elephant.
14:58What do you mean they owned elephants?
14:59They just had elephants?
15:00Yeah.
15:00I mean, like you have a dog.
15:02Do you have a dog?
15:03No, I don't have a dog.
15:04We have a rabbit.
15:04They had elephants.
15:05They had elephants.
15:05This is so weird because when I was a kid, I asked my dad, well, my sister really wanted a dog.
15:18Mm-hmm.
15:19And he was like, no pets.
15:21We have Hassan.
15:23And he had a, in his family, they had elephants?
15:26Three, two adults and a baby at the time that photograph was taken.
15:30Oh, my God.
15:32Oh, my God.
15:32Mm-hmm.
15:34That's awesome.
15:35That's really cool.
15:36I think it's cool.
15:36That's so cool.
15:39We wanted to learn more about Najmi's family, but we faced a huge roadblock.
15:44Few historical records survive in northern India, and those that exist are often difficult
15:52to locate because they lack filing systems or indexes.
15:57This problem is compounded by the fact that the widespread use of permanent surnames within
16:03India is relatively new, and many unrelated families share the same surname because they
16:11were initially derived from trades or professions.
16:15So 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,
16:28which has unusual roots.
16:31Did you know that?
16:32No.
16:34Begum is an Urdu word with roots in a Turkish word for princess.
16:39And historically, it was given to women who were the wife or daughter of a Beg, meaning
16:46a lord or a chieftain.
16:48Ever thought of your family as maybe having royal roots?
16:51I know in your fantasy, when you look in a mirror, you see a prince.
16:56You know, I got cousins that have egos like that, but I don't know if we are related in
17:03that way.
17:04Well, we didn't find any evidence that any of your ancestors were royalty, except etymologically.
17:10But it's certainly possible because of that, that they were.
17:13What's it like to think about that?
17:17It's pretty incredible.
17:19Yeah.
17:19And it's pretty amazing to just understand who you are and where you come from and what
17:33generations before may have been doing.
17:35It is.
17:36Yeah.
17:37Riding around those elephants in the backyard.
17:39Yeah, party elephants, sir.
17:41Yeah.
17:41Though we couldn't connect Hassan's family to royalty, we did uncover something fascinating.
17:50Hassan's relatives told us that his great-grandfather, a man named Sibgit Ula, was a prominent landowner.
17:57And as we combed through the archives in his home region, we uncovered a British publication
18:05that seemed to confirm this.
18:07The town of Dampur is the seat of several well-known families who own land, Muhammad Sibgit Ula, the
18:18principal shaykh resident of the place.
18:21That name sound familiar?
18:24That's my great-grandfather.
18:25We can't be certain, but we spoke with a scholar about this at length, and we think this may be
18:31indeed your great-grandfather.
18:33The names are similar, and Dampur is about five miles from Sherkot.
18:40Wow.
18:41And this is from a newspaper.
18:42The Biznor Gazetteer.
18:44Yeah.
18:45Which is a geographical index.
18:46Yeah, Biznor.
18:47My dad has talked about Biznor just casually.
18:50Oh, yeah?
18:50When he talks about Sherkot and Biznor, but it just sounds like he's describing different
18:54regions from Game of Thrones.
18:56I'm like, I don't know what that territory is.
18:58This index not only indicates that Sibgit owned land, it also describes him as being
19:08the principal shaykh of his town, which was potentially a very significant find.
19:14The term shaykh refers to a social class of Muslims in northern India, a group that claims
19:22Arab descent through the prophet Muhammad, and two of the founding caliphs of Islam, Abu Bakr
19:30and Omar.
19:32Did you ever think you might have Arabic roots?
19:36No.
19:36What's it like to think of that possibility?
19:44That's, you know, in our faith, the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and Abu Bakr and
19:53Omar the Khalifa are extremely important in our faith.
19:59And they're like the tent poles of what became Islam and the spread of Islam around the world.
20:09So, no, this is, this is extremely, very powerful and very,
20:25um, I had no idea.
20:32There were no records to test this theory, so we turn to DNA.
20:39While most modern-day Indians do not have any genetic ties to the Arab world,
20:46Hassan's admixture reveals that 2.3% of his DNA comes from West Asia,
20:53which includes what is now Iran, and 0.3% comes from the Arabian Peninsula.
21:03That is a significant result.
21:07So you have a DNA connection to Iran and to the Arab world.
21:13For most other Indians, oh, wow.
21:16So what's it like to learn this?
21:19Yeah, this is very powerful stuff, uh, both spiritually and historically.
21:25Yeah.
21:25What's your father going to say?
21:27Oh, he's going to, he's going to love this.
21:29This is going to blow my dad's mind.
21:32This is going to mean, I can't, I cannot tell you this is going to mean so much to my, my family.
21:36It means so much to me.
21:37We had one more detail to share with Hassan.
21:43It concerns what's called the First Battle of Paniput.
21:48The battle was fought near the city of Delhi in April of 1526
21:52and marked the start of the Mughal Empire,
21:56the last Islamic empire to rule India.
22:00It's a seminal event, memorialized in countless poems and paintings.
22:07And you may well have had an ancestor who fought in that battle.
22:15It's pretty cool.
22:21Yeah, this is a wild painting.
22:23Yeah, it's totally wild.
22:24There's like guys on horseback, there's a dude getting beheaded.
22:28But it's very beautiful.
22:30The painting is very beautiful.
22:32But what's it like to think of that possibility?
22:35And to be introduced to the complexity of your genetic makeup.
22:40I mean, it's surreal.
22:40This is one of the most epic stories of, you know,
22:45the greater Indian subcontinent and its history.
22:48Yeah.
22:48When you go to Delhi, you can still see those old Mughal forts.
22:52Yeah.
22:52And so to know that we have a connection to that is pretty epic.
22:56Does it change the way you see your father?
23:00A hundred percent.
23:01Yeah.
23:01Yeah.
23:02This is...
23:03This is...
23:13Yeah, there's a level of depth to this that I did not anticipate.
23:28Much like Hassan, Lizzie Kaplan was about to discover a hidden depth to her family.
23:34The story begins on her mother's side, with Lizzie's great-grandfather, a man named Abraham Miodovnik.
23:45Abraham was born sometime around 1892, in what was then the Russian Empire.
23:53But he didn't stay in Russia for long.
23:55We found him in New York City, when he was 19 years old, applying for American citizenship.
24:06That's amazing.
24:09That's amazing.
24:1119.
24:17That's crazy.
24:18What's it like to see that?
24:25I've tried to, you know, imagine what that would...
24:29You know, I haven't spent a ton of time trying to imagine it, but I have thought about, you know,
24:33what it would be like to be on a boat, coming to a place where you knew nobody, not a soul.
24:42And for whatever reason, I never imagined it as a 19-year-old kid.
24:48And I know 19 was different then than it is now, but man, I just...
24:54Like, children having to make these monumental decisions.
25:01It's wild.
25:03We don't know what motivated Abraham to come to America.
25:07But that decision forever altered his life.
25:10And we found the passenger list of the ship that brought him here.
25:15Giving Lizzie a glimpse of her ancestor at that crucial moment.
25:22Name in full, Abram, uh, Miodovnik, nationality, Russia, race or people, Hebrew.
25:31Whether in possession of $50 and if less, how much, $3.
25:36Where they're going to join a relative, Sister Anna Miodovnik, New York, 16 East 118th Street.
25:48That is Abraham arriving in the United States of America.
25:53So, does this say he had $3?
25:57Yep.
25:58It says, do you have at least $50?
26:04The answer, no.
26:05How much do you have?
26:06I have $3.
26:08He came here with three bucks.
26:12Unreal.
26:14I mean...
26:14Yeah, I don't even...
26:19Like, how do you even make this decision?
26:21Because you have no other choice, I suppose, in many situations.
26:25But that, I mean...
26:28Just the idea that he was coming to join his sister, who I've never heard of.
26:33And even just the correspondence that would be required to make those plans and how long that would take and how, I mean, it's crazy.
26:44I keep saying that, but it's crazy. It's crazy.
26:48We now set out to learn about Abraham's life before he immigrated.
26:53Lizzie had long been told that her mother's ancestors were Russian Jews.
26:58But that was not exactly true.
27:00At the time of Abraham's birth, Russia was a vast empire, covering much of Eastern Europe.
27:10And Abraham's hometown was a village called Zawierke.
27:15It lies on land that we no longer consider to be Russian.
27:21Have you ever heard of this place?
27:22No.
27:23That is your family home.
27:25It's located in the south of modern-day Poland.
27:29Huh.
27:29So you've thought of yourself as Russian.
27:32Yeah.
27:32Did you ever think of yourself as Polish?
27:34No.
27:35You're Polish.
27:35Yeah!
27:37You're going to visit?
27:38Yeah.
27:39Yeah.
27:39I'm booking my flight.
27:40You've got deep roots there.
27:42I know.
27:43When Lizzie visits Abraham's hometown, she will likely find few traces of the world Hindu,
27:52as it was almost completely obliterated by wars in the first half of the 20th century.
28:00But in the Polish state archives, we found documents that help bring Abraham's world briefly back to life.
28:08On the 24th of August, 1890, came in Benjamin Miodovnik, 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 to his lawful wife, Dobra Zizla.
28:31Mm-hmm.
28:31The child was circumcised and given the name Abram Leib.
28:35Mm-hmm.
28:36That is your great-grandfather's birth certificate.
28:431890.
28:43Crazy.
28:45Yep.
28:45And Benjamin and Dobra are your great-great-grandparents.
28:50You have DNA from these people.
28:52Yeah.
28:52This is your biological kin.
28:54And we're back in Poland over 130 years ago.
28:57What's it like to see that?
28:58Yeah.
28:59I mean, look, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to share the information that he was circumcised on television 130 years later.
29:07Yeah.
29:08It's like, yeah, in a village, he was a baker.
29:12It's just, this is like a...
29:13Did you know you had any bakers in the family?
29:15No.
29:16Although, probably could have guessed.
29:17Can you bake?
29:18Yeah, of course.
29:19Okay.
29:23Abraham's parents, Benjamin and Dobra, were married in 1883.
29:29By 1900, they had had at least six children together.
29:35But their happiness didn't last.
29:38Dobra died on August 23rd, 1900.
29:42Six days after giving birth.
29:47Wow.
29:49Dobra was just 40 years old, and she left seven children behind, including a newborn baby.
29:55Can you imagine?
29:58No.
30:00Of course not.
30:03I mean, no.
30:05I don't even know, like, what is a baker?
30:10I hope that there was other family around.
30:13I'm also just thinking about this, yeah, Abe being so young and losing his mom.
30:20Abraham lost his mother when he was just 10 years old.
30:22He was three years younger than you when you lost your mother.
30:27How do you imagine this loss affected him?
30:29I imagine that there probably wasn't a lot of time to talk about how it affected him at the time.
30:39I imagine that would be very, very lonely.
30:43Yeah.
30:44And how about Dobra's husband, Benjamin?
30:47Yeah.
30:47How do you think he coped?
30:48He was left alone with seven children, including a newborn baby.
30:52I know.
30:53I mean, but yeah, I mean, women, I'm sure, you know, dying in childbirth.
30:59Yeah, I have never really thought that through, that the infant is then left with the father in 1900.
31:09I don't know how you would cope, how one would cope.
31:13I can't even imagine.
31:14I completely can't imagine.
31:17There is, of course, no way to know how Benjamin processed his loss.
31:21But we do know that he moved on.
31:25Soon after Dobra's death, he remarried and transplanted his family to the town of Chetstehova, about 30 miles away.
31:36Your great-grandfather Abraham would leave for America from there in the summer of 1906.
31:43Wow.
31:45He likely never saw his father again.
31:48What do you think that was like for him?
31:51I just, I can't even begin to fathom what that family relationship would be like with all of those kids.
31:59Mm-hmm.
32:02Very limited resources.
32:05I mean, who knows?
32:05You can only, like, speculate what he thought about his own mother, let alone this stepmother.
32:15Maybe it was lovely and it was horrible to leave, and maybe it was horrible and it was a great escape.
32:20I'm out of here.
32:21Yeah.
32:21I mean, who could never, never know?
32:25Wow.
32:26Lizzie, let's just take a moment to think about the sheer magnitude of your great-grandfather Abraham's decision to move to the United States.
32:34With how much in his pocket?
32:35Three dollars.
32:36Three dollars.
32:37That singular, brave decision completely changed his fate, and by extension, your fate.
32:44Yep.
32:44Think about what could have happened had he decided, uh, I don't speak English, I ain't got no money, you know, I like, uh, the vodka here.
32:54Yeah.
32:54You know?
32:54Yeah.
32:54You know?
32:56What's it like to realize that, to think about that, you know, two roads diverge in a yellow wood, you know?
33:05Yep, that's it, right?
33:06Yeah.
33:06It's, you are the product of a bunch of decisions made by people that you've never met before.
33:11Mm-hmm.
33:13It's impossible not to think that there's some kind of cosmic plan or fate or something.
33:20Mm-hmm.
33:20And even if it's all just random, it's still miraculous.
33:26We'd already traced Hasan Minhaj's father's roots, revealing a surprising connection to Islamic India in the 1500s.
33:37Now, turning to his mother's family, we found a surprise in the much more recent past.
33:43The story begins with Hasan's grandmother, a woman named Tosif Rizvi.
33:52Hasan remembers her as a stern but loving disciplinarian who rarely spoke about her own childhood.
34:00And we think we know why.
34:04Tosif was born in Mehrot, a district in northern India.
34:08Her parents were farmers, but she wasn't raised by her parents.
34:15Instead, soon after her birth, she was adopted by her mother's childless elder sister.
34:23So you're telling me my grandmother, Tosif Rizvi, was raised by?
34:28Her aunt.
34:30Wow.
34:34She was a sign-in-trade, like in the NBA.
34:36And you've never heard this story before?
34:39No, I've never heard this story before.
34:41It's like a fairy tale.
34:42Yeah.
34:44This adoption would affect Tosif in ways her family never could have predicted.
34:51At the time, India was a colony of Great Britain, ruled by a government informally known as the Raj.
34:58And Tosif's aunt was married to a doctor who spent much of his career working for the Raj, including two terms in a government-run jail.
35:10We found a description of the jail, offering a glimpse into Tosif's highly unusual childhood.
35:20The district jail is at Ray Bareilly and Civil Lines.
35:24It was formed out of some of the abandoned barracks and is somewhat larger than most of the Oudh jails, having been originally designed as a divisional jail.
35:34It is, as usual, under the charge of the civil surgeon.
35:38According to your family, your grandmother and her parents lived in a government house next to the jail, with inmates doing chores in their home and even growing their vegetables.
35:48This explains why she was so strict with me.
35:50Could be.
35:52Your grandmother never talked about this.
35:55Never talked about this, no.
35:57Do you know what civil lines refers to?
35:59I have no idea.
35:59Well, under the Raj, civil lines were areas within cities where the British Civil Administration resided.
36:05Where the white people lived.
36:07British officers and administrators lived within them in European-style bungalows.
36:13Same in Africa.
36:14Tea was served on verandas, and leisure activities included horseback riding and, of course, cricket.
36:20And the only Indians permitted to live in civil lines were household staff or high-ranking Indian officials, such as judges and doctors.
36:28So your family was living alongside the British in these compounds.
36:33Wow.
36:35So what do you think that was like for your grandmother?
36:37I could only imagine that.
36:38I mean, for my Nani, code-switching and going between two worlds and trying to understand how to navigate both certainly probably shaped her understanding of how to survive and make it.
36:55Mm-hmm.
36:55Um, she definitely made sure that, on my mom's side, everybody was extremely educated.
37:04Mm-hmm.
37:04So I'm sure that living within these civil lines shaped perhaps her emphasis on education.
37:11Mm-hmm.
37:11Like, this is the way you make it, and this is how you succeed.
37:15Hassan is not alone in his opinion of Toseif.
37:19His family gave us a poem that she memorized as a child.
37:24It was written by her adoptive father and recited by her at a school function to mark the departure of one of her teachers.
37:33Antiquated, yet entertaining, the poem shows her immense enthusiasm for her own education.
37:44This news is dreadful.
37:45What will happen to me after your departure?
37:48You are indeed leaving, but please forgive me if I was ever insolent after receiving your guidance.
37:54I understand the teacher-student relationship.
37:56Once respectful manners are learned, a little jest is allowed.
37:58Who will now teach arithmetic, algebra, and history like you?
38:03Examinations are near, and you are no longer here.
38:05Remember this always.
38:06It is praise for you.
38:08My writing is a small token of appreciation.
38:11So, this is two things, like, to me.
38:15Number one, you know, kudos to her guts to stand up on stage.
38:21Sure.
38:21Um, number two, this is definitive proof that Indians in our DNA are teacher's pets.
38:32This is the most overachieving, pick me, can I get extra credit, dear professor energy.
38:40Which is why it's so crazy that I'm a comedian.
38:42Like, this is, you know, this is in my blood.
38:45Your family told us that your grandma could still recite that poem from memory at the age of 93.
38:51Yes.
38:52That's amazing.
38:53Yeah.
38:54How does it feel to read this?
38:55Is that the first time you've read it?
38:56This is the first time I've read it.
38:58This is the second time I've heard it.
39:00The first time my uncle performed it.
39:01Oh, that's cool.
39:02And it was really beautiful to hear him perform it.
39:04Did you know that your grandmother went to a high school that had only 10 female students?
39:10No.
39:10She studied arithmetic, English, Hindi, history, geography, and Urdu.
39:16And even played badminton.
39:18I didn't know that.
39:20Isn't that cool?
39:20Yeah, yeah.
39:21Because by the time, you know, I got to know her, she was, she was a small, you know, the way all grandmothers are.
39:28She was just a Golovkin at that point.
39:29You know, she's like a small, cute, little, round babushka.
39:32She graduated in 1946 and then went back to Sonota, where she married your grandfather in 1950.
39:40Wow.
39:41She had a tumultuous childhood, but she persevered and thrived.
39:45You feel a connection?
39:47I feel a huge connection to her.
39:48And she regularly, during my birthdays, would give me money for my birthday present.
39:58But it could only be used to buy something that would help me in my pursuits.
40:05So she helped me buy my first MacBook Pro that I edited my first stitches on.
40:10And, yeah.
40:10So that's because of my grandmother.
40:12Oh, that's cool.
40:12My grandmother, yeah.
40:13We had one more story to share with Hassan.
40:17And then, yeah.
40:18And then, yeah.
40:19Returning to Tosif's hometown in Mehrot, we were able to trace her husband's roots back two generations
40:26and place Hassan's ancestors at ground zero for what's often called India's first war of independence,
40:34a troop rebellion against the British that led to uprisings across the nation.
40:41So how does it feel to know that you have ancestors, your third great-grandparents, who may have been there at the very start?
41:00It's really powerful.
41:02And I'm out here complaining when the Wi-Fi goes down.
41:06But in all seriousness, it's like I can only imagine what they witnessed and what they went through and saw in their life.
41:15And it makes me feel really proud and I feel really overwhelmed with gratitude and humility that this is my family
41:36and I'm lucky enough to be their great-great-great-great-grandson.
41:40We'd already traced Lizzie Kaplan's mother's roots from Poland to New York,
41:47revealing how her great-grandfather Abraham came to America.
41:52We now turn to a darker side of this story.
41:56In 1926, Abraham's younger brother, a man named Wolf Miodownik, 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.
42:18On May 10, 1940, Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany.
42:24Wolf was 30 years old at the time.
42:27His wife, Leba, was 23.
42:30Can you imagine?
42:32No.
42:33Genuinely, no.
42:34Just what a terrifying time.
42:39Did you ever think you had a personal, familial connection to this?
42:44I thought maybe it was odd that I didn't.
42:48Mm-hmm.
42:49But, um, so I guess it's, with all of the siblings, it's not completely surprising, but I do, you know,
42:58growing up, it was my friends whose grandparents had survived the Holocaust,
43:01and we were very aware of who those grandparents were, and my grandparents were not in that group.
43:06Mm-hmm.
43:06Wolf and Leba are Lizzie's great-granduncle and aunt, and though the details of their story were not passed down,
43:18its outlines would prove painfully familiar.
43:21After the German invasion, they watched helplessly as the Nazis began seizing Jewish property and implementing anti-Semitic laws.
43:33Then, in March of 1944, just months after the birth of their first child, the family was arrested,
43:42and their situation became unimaginably worse.
43:46They were sent to a transit camp in northern Belgium called Mechelen,
43:53and then they were put on a train called Transport No. 24.
43:59And guess where Transport No. 24 was heading?
44:03I, uh, God, I, where, I don't even, where, where?
44:12Please turn the page.
44:15Yeah.
44:17Auschwitz.
44:19Yeah, I had no idea I had relatives in Auschwitz.
44:22Ugh.
44:23Yeah.
44:25It's, uh, 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,
44:38it is different when it's your own, when you know it's your own people, family.
44:43Roughly 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz.
44:51The vast majority were killed upon arrival in gas chambers.
44:56The rest were consigned to slave labor, and generally died of starvation or disease.
45:04Precise records were not kept.
45:07But the fates of the people on Transport 24 are set down in what's known as the Auschwitz Chronicle,
45:15a documentation of daily life in the camp written by a Polish historian.
45:21Most were immediately sent to the gas chambers.
45:26A small percentage were selected for labor, and none of the 54 children who were on this transport
45:32appear to have been admitted to the camp.
45:35So you know what that means.
45:37Ugh.
45:41Oh my God, that's so horrible.
45:43Yeah, that's so horrible.
45:49I just, I, yeah, I don't know how you exist in that much fear, and then I don't know how you recover from,
45:55or forget recover, but, like, go on from that.
45:59Well, and what would be worse if they, if they were selected to work, or if they were, I don't know how,
46:07I mean, somebody takes your baby from, I just, it's.
46:09You know, ripping the baby out of your arms.
46:11Wolf's six-month-old son, Benjamin, was likely killed immediately upon arrival,
46:16and since he was so young, could not walk, his mother, Leba, would have likely gone to her death alongside him.
46:24Just to carry him in?
46:25Mm-hmm.
46:29Ah.
46:31You two go this way, take your baby, and you lure them in.
46:37Yeah.
46:39And I'm, God, it's so, it's like, it's like such a, uh, there's no good outcome here, no matter what.
46:49I'm glad, though, to hear they were together, mother and son.
46:54With his family dead, Wolf entered Auschwitz on his own.
47:01Incredibly, 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,
47:18the Nazis were desperately trying to cover up their crimes.
47:24Auschwitz was abandoned, and Wolf was eventually transferred to Bergen-Belsen,
47:30a notorious concentration camp in northern Germany.
47:35From there, he was shipped some 400 miles south to Dachau, yet another camp.
47:42So how do you think Wolf found the strength to keep going?
47:48I don't know.
47:49It's just human will to survive, because, like, what is this life?
47:55Mm.
47:56Why would you want to keep going?
47:59Just, like, shuttled from one of these horror shows to the next?
48:04And just think of the terror.
48:07That's it, right?
48:08Yeah.
48:08Constant, constant terror, with no end in sight.
48:15I, yeah.
48:18They were tougher than we were, than we are.
48:23Dachau was liberated on April 29th, 1945,
48:28almost two months after Wolf arrived.
48:32He was likely emaciated, and very close to death.
48:37But as it turns out, Wolf had a great deal more life left in him.
48:44After the war, Wolf returned to Belgium,
48:47where he married a fellow Holocaust survivor.
48:50They welcomed a daughter in 1949,
48:54and then, three years later, moved one final time to America.
49:02Wolf, Mia Dovnik, nationality, stateless, race, Hebrew, age 41,
49:08final destination in the United States,
49:11Mr. Charles Meadow, 1138 Worcester Street.
49:16God, it's so crazy to see just, like, the map of the concentration camps
49:22and then Worcester in L.A.
49:26Like, that's crazy.
49:28Yeah.
49:32Yeah, that's, that's pretty nuts.
49:37That's a miracle.
49:39It is.
49:43Absolutely.
49:47Wolf was 42 years old when he arrived in the United States.
49:51Incredibly, he had survived at least four concentration camps
49:58and lost a wife and a child,
50:01as well as countless friends and relatives.
50:05But he was able to build a new life for himself,
50:08a life that would be celebrated right up until the end,
50:13as evidenced even by his grave.
50:16Wolf lived to be 93 years old.
50:22Nice, Wolf.
50:24He died November 10th, 2003,
50:28and is buried along with his second wife, Mala,
50:32in Coma, California, just outside of San Francisco.
50:36Golden mensch.
50:38How about that?
50:39I love it.
50:42What's it like to see that?
50:44Oh, this makes me so happy.
50:46Because, like, he's got little funny things on his,
50:48on his tombstone.
50:50Like, that's...
50:53He was loved.
50:55Yeah.
50:57They both were.
50:58Oh, my God, this is amazing.
51:01The paper trail had now run out for Lizzie and Hassan.
51:06It was time to unfurl their full family trees.
51:10Now filled with people whose names they'd never heard before.
51:14That's incredible.
51:15For each, it was a moment of all.
51:17Wow.
51:19Offering the chance to reflect on the sacrifices
51:22that shaped their families
51:24and forged their identities.
51:27When you see your parents struggling and working hard and clipping out coupons,
51:34you don't think you're someone or from somewhere.
51:39You know, you just think you're just grabbing by and surviving.
51:41But 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 or that they chose to make.
51:52And I feel very lucky, like, in the dictionary definition of the word lucky, that they made those decisions.
52:03That's the end of our journey with Hassan Minaj and Lizzie Kaplan.
52:09Join me next time when we unlock the secrets of the past for new guests on another episode of Finding Your Roots.
52:20o
52:26The fact that I want to change the truth of the past for new guests.
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