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Some family history is more than just names on a page. Join us as we look at emotional “Finding Your Roots” revelations involving celebrities whose ancestors endured the Holocaust and WWII. From survival stories to devastating losses, these powerful discoveries shed light on the hidden legacies behind stars like Mandy Patinkin, Scarlett Johansson, Diane von Furstenberg, and more.
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00:00Growing up, it was my friends whose grandparents had survived the Holocaust,
00:03and we were very aware of who those grandparents were,
00:06and my grandparents were not in that group.
00:08So this is news to me.
00:10Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:11And today, we're looking at celebrities with ancestral connections
00:14to the Holocaust and World War II
00:16that have been discussed in the PBS series Finding Your Roots.
00:20And I promised myself I wouldn't cry.
00:24Diane von Furstenberg.
00:26Unlike many celebrities on Finding Your Roots,
00:28iconic fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg
00:31already knew that her mother, Lillian Namias, survived Auschwitz.
00:35And then she said, I'm Jewish, I'm just hiding.
00:37And the woman said to her, don't say you're Jewish.
00:41But she did, and she got shipped.
00:43She credits her mother's resilience for making her the woman she is today,
00:47as well as her father, Leon Helfen.
00:49Something she didn't know was how her paternal great-grandmother,
00:52Sarah Weinberg, died in 1941.
00:55Sarah had already told Leon to stay away from the city,
00:57a choice that would save his life.
01:00Then, in October of that year,
01:02Sarah was one of the thousands of other Jewish prisoners
01:04who were captured and eventually killed.
01:06The other remaining 48,000 were led to a ravine
01:10and shot to death over several days.
01:13Some froze to death, waiting for their turn to be shot.
01:17She could have perished in a fire set by Nazi soldiers,
01:20or shot in a ravine.
01:22Either way, Sarah and so many others lost their lives.
01:25Even if you save only one life, behind one life, there's a dynasty.
01:31And she perished, but her son flourished.
01:36Pamela Adlon
01:37After solving a decades-long mystery in her mother's family,
01:41actress and filmmaker Pamela Adlon learned more about her paternal roots.
01:45Two of her great-grand-aunts, Maniha and Genia,
01:48stayed in Kiev while their other siblings emigrated to America.
02:01The Finding Your Roots team couldn't trace Genia's life,
02:04but they found some info on her sister's family.
02:07Maniha's daughter, Clara Berman, married a Ukrainian man named Anatoly.
02:11When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he went off to war,
02:15and his wife and children moved in with his mother.
02:17But when their village was taken over by the German army,
02:20Anatoly's mother exposed her daughter-in-law and grandchildren as Jewish,
02:24which ultimately led to their tragic deaths.
02:26Her mother-in-law gave her and the children up.
02:30Oh, you...
02:31Oh, she told on them.
02:35She narked on their Jewishness.
02:38Yeah.
02:39Adlon was at least relieved to know Maniha survived World War II,
02:43and lived in Ukraine until her passing in 1969.
02:46What's it like to learn that you had family in Ukraine as recently as the 1960s?
02:54That's nuts.
02:55Carole King
02:56On the season two episode, Our People, Our Traditions,
03:00legendary singer-songwriter Carole King realized why her maternal grandmother
03:03wasn't more loving and warm, or willing to talk about her past.
03:07Um, it closed a part of her off.
03:09Mm-hmm.
03:10Mm-hmm.
03:11She was not a woman who was warm or affectionate.
03:14Mm-hmm.
03:14Well, now we can begin to understand why.
03:16In Russia, she had lived through a pogrom,
03:19an organized mass murder of Jewish residents,
03:22where 32 of her neighbors were killed.
03:24The episode also includes two more stories of Eastern European Jewish ancestry.
03:28Playwright Tony Kushner had several Polish-Jewish ancestors among the 2,000 who were killed
03:33in a 1941 massacre in the Bukovica Forest.
03:36A near-successful attempt to obliterate...
03:39In less than a decade.
03:40In less than a decade, an entire civilization.
03:44This is beyond human comprehension.
03:47And attorney Alan Dershowitz's grandfather, Louis,
03:50saved 28 relatives from Czechoslovakia in 1939,
03:54bringing them to his synagogue in New York.
03:56So you might ask me why I'm so sympathetic to illegal immigrants in the United States.
04:01Because my family were illegal immigrants.
04:03Some of the most successful members of my family were brought over on fake affidavits.
04:07Your grandfather was a hero, man.
04:09He was.
04:10All three guests learned that even though their ancestors endured tragedies,
04:14they still managed to triumph.
04:16Deborah Messing
04:17Finding Your Roots gave Will & Grace star Deborah Messing
04:20the opportunity to learn much more about her paternal grandparents,
04:23Millie and Morris Messing.
04:24In 1923, Morris, his father Chaim, his mother Esther,
04:29and two of his siblings arrived in America.
04:31Chaim's brother Abraham, Deborah's great-granduncle, whom she'd never heard of,
04:36stayed in Poland and settled in Krakow with his wife Sarah and their three children.
04:39Have you ever heard of him?
04:40No.
04:41Okay.
04:42Unlike your great-grandparents, who left to search for a better life in America,
04:46Abraham never left Poland.
04:48In 1939, German soldiers invaded the city.
04:51And in 1940, Krakow's Jewish residents were ordered to leave.
04:55Registration records show that Abraham, his son Salman, and daughter Vida moved 100 miles
05:00from Krakow.
05:01What do you imagine it must have been like for your family here,
05:05knowing that Abraham and his family were in so much danger across the Atlantic?
05:10Oh my God.
05:10However, details about their lives and deaths are unknown,
05:14as is the fate of Sarah and their daughter Golda.
05:16You know, and now to have their pictures and to be able to be like,
05:20okay, we know, we know what you went through.
05:25Right.
05:25Richard Kind.
05:26Actor Richard Kind knew he descended from Jewish immigrants on both sides of his family,
05:31but Henry Louis Gates Jr. provided in-depth detail about their lives.
05:35Kind's maternal third great-grandfather, Meyer Vacht, emigrated from Poland to New York in 1891
05:41and had his family members join him.
05:43Meyer's nephew, Avram Vacht, lived there with three of his brothers, but eventually returned home.
05:48He came to America in 1891, and in the ensuing years, much of his family followed him,
05:56including a nephew named Avram Vacht.
05:59By 1910, he was married with children in the town of Narev, but Avram and his family,
06:05along with roughly 300 Jewish Narev residents, were forced into a confined area where they
06:10endured immense cruelty.
06:11The Gestapo came and demanded that the Shtetl pay tribute, one kilo of gold,
06:1510 kilo of silver, and 100,000 rubles.
06:18My father, Avram Vacht, was told to collect the money.
06:22The Germans took the money and then beat him badly.
06:25When the area was evacuated in late 1942, Avram's son, Label, escaped.
06:30In his written accounts, he credits a kind Polish farmer for saving his life while risking his own.
06:36By helping me, the Ivaniuks were aware that they risked their lives.
06:40Oh, it's to them that I owe my life.
06:43Lena Dunham
06:44For Lena Dunham, appearing on Finding Your Roots uncovered some heartwarming information,
06:49like her maternal grandparents' wedding announcement.
06:52Dorothy was 23 years old at the time, and Samuel was 30.
06:55What's it like to see that?
06:58Do a lot of people cry when this happens?
07:00Every once in a while.
07:01Okay, it's beautiful.
07:03But going back further revealed the heartbreaking reality of her ancestors' lives during World War II.
07:08Her great-great-grandmother, Regina Seltinvert, immigrated to New York at a young age.
07:13But her parents and at least 11 siblings stayed in Europe.
07:16One of her brothers, Moses Seltinvert, lived in Hungary with his family until they were split up,
07:21and he lost track of his daughter Ilona.
07:23She was sent to Kamyanets Podilski, the city where an estimated 24,000 Jewish people were massacred in August 1941.
07:30And Moses' daughter, Ilona, was sent to a place called Kamyanets Podilski, where she met a terrible fate.
07:41While Moses, his wife, and their son survived, Ilona's whereabouts and fate remained unknown.
07:47Sadly, she was likely among the thousands who were killed.
07:50But to see a personal connection to it literalizes it in a way that is, that's very, very powerful.
07:59Scarlett Johansson
08:00Scarlett Johansson already knew a little about her maternal ancestors who immigrated to New York.
08:05That's the real immigrant story.
08:07It is.
08:08You know, just the promise of some opportunity and the faith that you're going to make it on the other
08:15side.
08:16But, as always, there is much more to their story and the family members left behind in Europe.
08:21Johansson's great-grandfather, Saul Schlomberg, made his way to America from Poland in 1910,
08:26while his brother Moshek remained in Gruyets.
08:29By 1942, Moshek, his wife, their 10 children, and hundreds of Gruyets' Jewish residents were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto,
08:37where they suffered from starvation, diseases, and cruelty from Nazi soldiers,
08:41with the threat of deportation or death always looming.
08:44Children's names under the age of 18 that perished.
08:48Zlata, age 15, time and place of death, Warsaw Ghetto.
08:52The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum had a testimony from one of Moshek's daughters,
08:57detailing her family's deaths.
08:58Johansson was moved when she read about their devastating fates.
09:01It's crazy to imagine that Saul would be on the other side selling bananas.
09:06Oh, yeah.
09:07On Ludlow Street.
09:08Yep.
09:09And how different it would be being in America at that time.
09:12The fate of one brother versus the other.
09:14Alanis Morissette.
09:16Growing up, Alanis Morissette was raised Catholic.
09:19The Canadian-American singer-songwriter found out later in adulthood that she was Jewish,
09:23and heard stories of her mom's life as a child of Holocaust survivors.
09:26I think I found out that I was Jewish in my late 20s.
09:31Really?
09:31I didn't know, yeah.
09:32Why do you think that no one told you?
09:35I think there was a terror that is in their bones, and they were being protective of us.
09:41While Alanis' grandfather, Imra Fierstein, wasn't forced into the work battalions,
09:45no one knew the fate of his brothers, Georgi and Sandor.
09:48For years, Imra tried to find out where his siblings ended up, but to no avail.
09:52And having gone there a couple of times and hearing stories from my mother sitting right
09:58next to her in the home she grew up in, it's just, it's unfathomable for me.
10:03The show's researchers solved the decades-long mystery, finding testimonies that confirmed
10:07the two men were enslaved in a labor camp and sent to Russia where they died.
10:12Unfortunately, Imra passed away before he could finally get closure.
10:27Eliza Schlesinger
10:28Actor-comedian Eliza Schlesinger appeared on Finding Your Roots to trace her paternal roots.
10:33She learned that her great-grandmother, Esther Schonek, courageously emigrated from Poland
10:38to New York in 1921 and paid her own way.
10:45All by herself.
10:47But her parents and five siblings didn't make the journey with her.
10:50One of her brothers, Lipa, was working in Wawa when German soldiers invaded the small town in 1939.
10:56Within a year of the invasion, Jewish residents were all imprisoned in what's called a walled-in ghetto.
11:01Now you have a younger brother, Ben.
11:03I do.
11:05What do you imagine it must have been like for Esther, knowing that her sibling was in so much danger?
11:10Horrific.
11:11A few years later, Lipa and many others were sent to Auschwitz.
11:14And after a few months at the concentration camp, he died of myocardial degeneration.
11:20Amazingly, Esther's brother Abraham and his family survived the invasion in France and joined her in New York in 1955.
11:27Haven't seen each other in, what, since she was 22, so...
11:30Yeah.
11:31And to know that they lost at least one sibling that I know of as of now.
11:36Before we unveil our last pick, here are some honorable mentions.
11:39Kristen Bell.
11:41The actress wept with pride hearing about her grandfather's bravery in World War II.
11:45Your grandfather actually saved the life of a fellow soldier under heavy mortar and artillery fire.
11:54That's very cool.
11:56Yeah.
11:56I'm very proud of him.
11:57Jeff Goldblum.
11:58The actor was moved to tears learning about his ancestor's fate as a Soviet soldier.
12:02They certainly knew nothing of each other, I'm sure.
12:07But it's moving.
12:10It's very moving.
12:12George Stephanopoulos.
12:13The anchor's great-grandfather paid the price as a freedom fighter against Nazi-occupied Greece.
12:18They were patriots.
12:20Wow.
12:22Makes me feel humbled because I would hope I would do the same thing in their circumstance.
12:25David Duchovny, the actor-musician, was proud of his ancestor's resilience in the face of anti-Semitism.
12:31They ran and they ran and they got somewhere.
12:34You know, they didn't give up.
12:38They didn't give up.
12:45Before we continue, check out this single from Sound Mojo's Adia, Songs from Iran, reimagining
12:52Persian melodies as modern rock, metal, and pop songs.
12:55Check out the full track and album below.
12:57Where are you, my love so near?
13:00Say the word and I'll appear.
13:02I wrote this song just for you.
13:04To tell you what I always knew.
13:12Mandy Patinkin.
13:14Mandy Patinkin's paternal grandfather, Max Patinka, immigrated to New York in 1906.
13:19What the actor didn't know was that his great-uncle David had already made the journey.
13:24However, David went back to Poland.
13:26During a robbery, he and his wife were murdered, along with two of their five children.
13:30Where he lived with his wife, Baszka, and their five children.
13:35One night, robbers attacked their house.
13:38They murdered David, his wife, and two of his children.
13:42David's surviving sons, Chaim and Lazor, had a similar story.
13:46Chaim settled in New York in 1939, but his brother Lazor stayed in the Polish town of Bronsk
13:51with his family.
13:52By late 1942, they were among the over 2,000 Jewish residents transported to the Treblinka
13:58concentration camp.
13:59Lazor would have been about 29 years old.
14:01His wife, Bluma, would have been about 25.
14:03And their son, David, would have just been a few months old.
14:07They had relatives in America, but now they were trapped.
14:11Just days later, they were killed in a gas chamber.
14:14Patinkin was visibly devastated to learn about the gruesome deaths of his ancestors.
14:18I said, I don't think any of my relatives died in the Holocaust.
14:22I was never given this information.
14:26This is, I don't have words.
14:29Do you have ancestors who lived through World War II?
14:32Feel free to share your stories in the comments.
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