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00:08Actor and writer Rashida Jones lives in Los Angeles. Her many film credits include I Love
00:13You Man and The Social Network and she played the role of Ann Perkins on Parks and Recreation.
00:19Rashida is the daughter of music industry legend Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton.
00:24My dad's always kind of been obsessed with our genealogy and our family tree so he did
00:30all types of research and had our family roots traced and it's been nice because he loves
00:35to talk about it. But despite my interest in Jewish culture I don't know very much about
00:40my personal Jewish family history on my mom's side. I did spend a lot of time with her parents
00:46my grandpa Harold and grandma Rita growing up but both of them have since passed away.
00:51I was very close with my grandmother and I always have like felt connected to her. I
00:57have her art all over my house and I feel like she's kind of always with me. So I'm starting
01:02this journey with my mom to see what else she can tell me about my grandmother. I'm meeting
01:07her and my sister Kidada at my dad's house here in Los Angeles. My parents divorced a long
01:12time ago but we are still very much a family. What do you know mom? What do you know?
01:16Well, you know even though my mother kept a great record of her photographs I don't know
01:22that much about her life. My mother Rita even though she didn't have a formal education she
01:29was very erudite, very sophisticated and had incredible taste. Looks like Rashida.
01:35Irish yeah there's a lot there's a lot. Beautiful. She was born in Ireland and left there and came
01:45to the States to live in Nyack New York with some Jewish relatives with her sister Pearl and Rita
01:51was apparently 14 or 15. Rita like maybe went to a month or to a school and split. She left.
01:58She left
01:58Nyack, she left Pearl, she left everybody. To go to Manhattan? Yeah she went to Manhattan and never came
02:03back. Her sister Pearl once said to me very late in life, oh god Rita was like she was she
02:11used to dance.
02:13I didn't even know Rita was a dancer. Pearl went down to New York. With her feathers? Not quite that
02:19if
02:19you you know she was much classier than my mother was so classy. But apparently there was this thing in
02:24New York that were called taxi dancers. This is what Pearl told me. Okay so when does she meet
02:30grandpa? She um married Harold in 41. I think she was like 30. And at some point she changed her
02:38name from
02:39Rosenberg to Benson right? Yeah it was very confusing at the time. Was she Rosenberg? Was she a Benson?
02:45Benson. Do you think it was something to do with the with the religious cultural implications? Yeah I would
02:50imagine that Jews were not looked on with much affection at all. They may have changed their name out of
02:57fear.
02:59My mom said my grandmother Rita quit school and ran off to Manhattan but I don't know when.
03:06So I'm off to New York to begin my search.
03:12It seems as though my grandmother was reinventing herself going from a Jewish immigrant teenager to a
03:19taxi dancer to a sophisticated wife and a mother and that's really interesting to me. I'm heading to the
03:26New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwartzman building to meet with Professor Kirsten Firmiglich
03:31who's been looking for information on my grandmother's time in the city to help me piece
03:34together this transformation. I want to find out some things about my grandmother. Okay. Who was Rita
03:42Benson but at some point was Rosenberg. We're not quite sure when she changed her name and I also want
03:49to
03:49know there's this like big chunk of time where she just disappeared into the city before she met my
03:55grandfather and nobody knows what she was doing. So well New York passenger lists. Oh 1926. Look there it
04:05is Pearl and Rita Rosenberg. God 13 and 18. It's crazy to come to a different country without your parents.
04:14Was that uncommon? It wouldn't have been that uncommon. Right. It would have been a lot of
04:18families when they immigrated would come over in that way. Jews in particular would come over in bits
04:23and pieces. Okay. Mother Jeanie Rosenberg. Okay so Jeanie right that's my great grandmother. I have to wear
04:33my glasses sorry. Oh they're going to join their relative or friend. Okay now this is really weird. Uncle Mr.
04:41Elliot Benson. Oh maybe they took their uncle's name in an attempt to acclimatize. It's possible it
04:50definitely happened. So she changed her name sometime after she arrived in New York? I have this uh
04:55declaration of intention which is what immigrants need to file when they're going to become citizens.
05:00Um 1936. Okay. This is when she's trying to become a citizen. And here she's Rosenberg.
05:08Mm-hmm. I was born in Dublin Ireland. Birthday. May 30th 1912.
05:16So if she immigrated in 1926 and got married in 1941 that's 15 years.
05:23Which means there's a really long stretch where I have no idea what she was doing.
05:29Wow. So Evelyn Feldman. Oh this is somebody saying I know this person. I first met her in New York
05:36City
05:37in January 1933 through mutual friends. Rita Hetty Rosenberg known as Rita Benson.
05:43She's known as Rita Benson as early as clearly by 1939. Right. She's known as Benson.
05:50But did she ever change her name officially? This is the certificate of citizenship.
05:58Aww.
06:03She got her citizenship. That's good.
06:06Wow.
06:09Okay so by the time she gets her citizenship she's just Rita Benson.
06:15Name change by decree of court June 30th 1939 from Rita Hetty Rosenberg to Rita Benson.
06:22It's part of naturalization.
06:26Okay so as part of her becoming a citizen you can also do like a simultaneous name change.
06:33Yeah.
06:34What were the main reasons why people would change your name? Jobs?
06:38Yeah. There's a lot of anti-semitism that increases in the U.S. in the 20s and in the 1930s.
06:44This is a clip from the New York World, a newspaper that we were able to find through the New
06:49York Public Library.
06:50Help wanted mail. Christian. Christian. Every job has to be filled by a Christian.
06:58Meet intelligent Americans. So that meaning not immigrants.
07:03Right.
07:03That's so crazy.
07:06Employers are very open in discriminating against Jews. They could openly sort of say what kinds of
07:11applicants they preferred. Christians. Yep.
07:16I know that my grandmother kind of disappeared and there's this there's a huge window. She didn't get
07:21married until she was 29. So there's 15 years there and I think I don't know exactly when she went
07:26to
07:27the city and people stopped hearing from her but she must have been pretty young and I'm definitely
07:33interested to know where she went. What she was doing. Okay.
07:40The next step really is to figure out where my grandmother was.
07:45Kirsten suggested I meet with writer David Freeland at the Paramount Hotel. David is an expert in 1930s
07:51Manhattan nightlife and he's taking me to a former ballroom and nightclub in the basement of the hotel
07:55to show me what he found out about my grandmother. What was this called. Well this was Billy Rose's
08:02Diamond Horseshoe. It opened in 1938. This was really one of the greatest nightclubs in New York City
08:09history. Wow. You can imagine what it must have been like at the time. Yeah I can kind of picture
08:15it. So this is my grandmother. Oh wow. Extremely beautiful. Yeah she's like a movie star. Her name
08:23was Rita Rosenberg when she came to the U.S. in 1926 and at some point after that my family
08:28says she was
08:29taxi dancing. The term comes from the whole notion of being in a taxi cab. The more time you're in
08:36a cab
08:37the more money you spend. Right. We can tell from looking at the various photographs that you've
08:42brought in. Your grandmother was pursuing a career as an entertainer. Really? As a show girl. Often
08:51taxi dancing was a stepping stone to work as a show girl. Okay. This I would say is the 1930s.
09:00This photograph looks to be from the early 1940s. We can tell because of the hairstyle.
09:07And this is a publicity headshot clearly. Because she was having her photograph taken by
09:13Murray Korman. So Murray Korman was really the go-to photographer for all show girls.
09:19Wow. So you would never just get a picture like this taken of yourself unless you were pursuing
09:25that kind of career? You would not have gone to Murray Korman. Okay. But I definitely wonder how she
09:32compartmentalized being Jewish in this world. I feel like she almost had to in some ways just
09:38keep that out, put that somewhere else for the time being, you know? Well, I think what happens when
09:43a lot of people come to New York, it happens now and it happened then, is that they reinvent themselves.
09:49Right. I love picturing my grandmother making her way in the city and redefining herself. And maybe it
09:59wasn't like the most respectable business to be in, but just to me like kind of modern and very
10:06independent. And I feel, um, I feel cool to be connected to that. My grandmother was so young
10:14and yet so ambitious when she came to this country. I wonder what she was leaving back home.
10:22I'm on my way to Dublin to see what I can find out.
10:30I'm going to the Irish Jewish Museum to meet the curator Yvonne Altman O'Connor.
10:36Hi. Hello. Yvonne's been searching local records for details of my grandmother's time here.
10:42Thanks for sitting down with me. You're very welcome. What I do know about my grandmother,
10:46Rita, is that she at some point left to go to New York, but was born in Dublin.
10:52Yes. Now, here we have the birth certificate of your grandmother.
10:56Cool. All right. Can I take a look at this? Please.
11:03Wow. Rita Hetty. May 15th, 1912. Hyman Rosenberg is the name of the father.
11:12Mm-hmm. Jeannie Rosenberg, formerly Benson. Okay, so that's her maiden name.
11:18That's right. Interesting. I have no idea about the, about the origin of that name.
11:22It's kind of still a mystery. Did she change her name or was she, you know,
11:27was the family more established here? Because that might explain the name.
11:30Good question. You know, I think you should meet with Stuart Rosenblatt,
11:34who is a Jewish genealogist. Okay.
11:36And may be able to answer some of those questions for you. Okay. Great.
11:40Well, hello. Hi. Nice to meet you.
11:42Nice to meet you, too. Stuart Rosenblatt's been looking into my great-grandmother,
11:46Jeannie Benson's family origins, and I can't wait to hear what he's found.
11:52Over the last 14 years, I have accumulated information of Irish Jewry,
11:57their ascendants and descendants from all around the world. Wow.
12:00Of births, deaths, marriages, and burials. And research has shown that your
12:07great-grandmother's name, Jeannie Benson, is listed. Oh. Look at Jeannie. Oh, Jeannie,
12:15Jeannie. They're known as different names. Okay. Because Jeannie was what I thought it was,
12:20but I guess they're all kind of in the same... Same genre.
12:23...family. Born in Manchester? That's Manchester, England.
12:27Manchester, England. Really? Yes. Wow.
12:32So do you have anything that can help me find Jeannie's parents?
12:37Your great-grandmother and father got married in 1906. Right.
12:42And this is the marriage certificate that we've uncovered. Okay.
12:46Yeah, let me take a look at that. It's this part here. Okay.
12:4827th December, signed Hyman Rosenberg, Taylor, Bachelor. And you have Jeannie.
12:55Jeannie Benson, Spinster. Yes.
12:58So the parents... I've never seen... I've actually never seen these parents' names.
13:03Benjamin Benson, Jewelry Traveler. And Sophia Benson, Weinstein.
13:10Weinstein.
13:12Benjamin Benson. So this marriage record for my great-grandparents gives me the names of Jeannie's
13:17parents, my great-great-grandparents, Sophia Weinstein and Benjamin Benson. That's another
13:24generation in Ireland with the name Benson. It's funny because I thought, because my grandmother took this
13:31name, I think we always assumed that it was, you know, just kind of out of the ethers. We didn't
13:38realize
13:38that the name went back this far. And we have here photographs. Wow. And that's Benjamin.
13:48That's your great-great-grandfather. And this is another photograph of Benjamin and his regalia,
13:55probably in his Shabbos vest. And this is where he is in a
14:02Inglified shirt and jacket and tie. In top hat. In top hat. So sweet.
14:09And that brings us to the 1911 census showing
14:14Benjamin and Sophia Benson. Wow. Benjamin Benson,
14:19head of family, Jew, read and write, Hebrew teacher. Is he his age?
14:2472. 72. 72. Wow. That's pretty old.
14:29Very old. Yeah. What year is this? 1911.
14:331911. So born in 1839, 37, 39. Yeah, let's say that.
14:41Russia. Born in Russia. Well, it's a Russian empire. It doesn't define which country they would
14:47actually come from. So that means everything from what we now know as Russia to like all those other
14:53Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Estonia, yes. We're all in the Russian empire. Wow.
14:59Most of the Irish Jewish people came from a town called Acmean in Lithuania. And we did some research
15:05to find the Benson family from Lithuania. And we came up to a dead end. But what we did find
15:12was siblings who went to another country. And we have here an entry for Pesce Benson, who is Benjamin's sister.
15:25Right. Born 1824, Latvia.
15:31So Pesce Benson is my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin's sister.
15:39And we can assume that they were both born in Latvia? Absolutely. Wow.
15:45We've never known anything about the true origin of our family on that side.
15:50Well, you have a nice trip in store for you.
15:53So I'm heading to Riga, the capital of Latvia, and the birthplace of my great-great-grandfather,
16:00Benjamin Benson.
16:08So I'm at the National Archives to meet with an expert in Jewish-Latvian history, Rita Bogdanova.
16:15Together, we're looking through the records for any trace of Benjamin Benson and my family's roots
16:21here in Latvia. So, and we go. I can show you one document. This file is a record enlistment
16:31from 1871 and lists all male persons calling to the military service. And here you can see
16:40the alphabetical order, and you can find through your family name.
16:45Brenberg. Could it be Brenberg? No.
16:50Wait. Benson. I see Benjamin.
16:53It's actually Benson? It's Benson and have been.
16:57Wow. That's crazy.
17:01So, Schlauma Benjamin Benson, 62. He must be Benjamin, my great-great-grandfather's father.
17:11So he's my great-great-great-grandfather.
17:15Is that correct?
17:15Yeah. Okay. Wow. Is there anything else you want to show me?
17:20Well, I can show you another list with your family. This file is a record enlistment of Hazenpot
17:29for 1841. And that's where most of my family is from.
17:33Yes. Your family was definitely from this place. In the old times, it was named Hazenpot. But since
17:39Latvian Republic in 1918, it is called Aisputa. Aisputa. In Latvian. Yes.
17:46Wow. Schlauma Benjamin Benson.
17:51So well-documented. I can't believe it. Yeah. Okay. So these were the brothers. Yeah.
17:56Your uncle, Abraham, Isaac.
17:59So these military eligibility records have taken me from my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin,
18:05to his father, Schlauma. The records also tell me Schlauma had three brothers
18:12and their father, Benjamin Marcus, was born in 1786. Wow. So they were there for a long time.
18:19Yeah. Three or four generations. Yes. Amazing.
18:23I've learned that we've been in Latvia since the late 1700s. I have deep, deep, deep ties to this
18:33country. I would like to know more about Hazenpot and what it was like for my family to live there.
18:41For a few generations and what it was like for Jews to live there. So I'm meeting with a Latvian
18:48Jewish historian, Eli Alenski, at a former synagogue. He's been looking into the Benson's history here
18:54in Aisputa for me. This is my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin. His name is Benson. Would Benson just be
19:03son of Benjamin? It could. Yeah, it could. It could. I'll just, just show you. This is a document from
19:101834. It's a residence permit issued to Schlauma, marked here as Schlauma Benjamin. And we can presume
19:17that at this moment, maybe he didn't acquire a surname yet. Oh, so they didn't even have them.
19:25Yeah, they didn't have the surname because in traditional Jewish society, people are named
19:29according to the name of the father. Oh, right. Okay. Then the Russian legislation made them to
19:35acquire surnames. So we can, on some level, assume that Schlauma, before he was made to, didn't have
19:42a last name. Most probably. I think him and his father, they were, in fact, the first generation
19:49that took the surname. Wow. To know now that that is
19:53actually our family name. Yes, of course. And our first family name. Yeah, and the only one. And the
19:58only one is, um, that's definitely a big, that's a big family revelation. I'm happy to share with my
20:04family. Uh, so the last trace we have of Schlauma is his death record from 1872. We know that he
20:16was 62
20:17years old. Mm-hmm. And then the next document that I saw was my great-grandmother's birth in the UK
20:24in the 1880s. So I guess I'm imagining that Benjamin, my great-great-grandfather, left sometime
20:31between his father dying and, you know, whenever his daughter was born. Most probably. Why would he leave
20:38at this time? Well, the Jews were afraid. In year 1827 was introduced the recruitment into the army.
20:46They had to serve as all the recruits in the Russian army for 25 years. Wow.
20:51And also at a certain point, the recruitment number for Jews was thrice as big as for non-Jews. And
20:59it
20:59became worse and worse. And many people, of course, tried to avoid this recruitment.
21:05So they would leave? They would leave.
21:09So this building is the synagogue in Eisputa. Yeah. So we, the part we're currently sitting in,
21:19was a small prayer house that was used on a daily basis. And nearby is the great synagogue that was
21:28used on a Sabbath and holidays. But during the Holocaust, both buildings, of course, were desecrated
21:35and looted. And what about the local community? The Jewish community was completely exterminated
21:42during the Holocaust. Completely. Most of the members of the community were killed on 27th of October 1941.
21:54They were taken to nearby forests and killed there. Nobody thought that something like that could happen.
22:03Right. So even though I know that my great-great-grandfather went to England,
22:12Shlomo still had brothers that maybe didn't leave here.
22:17You best talk to Rita. She will be able to provide information of those who stayed, if any,
22:24after the Holocaust. Okay.
22:29I'm going to see Rita Bogdanova again. I come back to you because I guess I'm curious as to
22:34what happened to the descendants of Shlomo's brothers, Isaac, Yonkel, Abraham.
22:43Well, Shlomo's brothers had families. And you can see them here on the tree.
22:51I can show you also the passports.
22:56Wow.
22:56This is Abraham David. He went 39 to Paris to visit the family, to rest, etc. And her mother,
23:08she had to write an application and ask for a visa for her son because she wanted him to come
23:14back.
23:15From Paris?
23:17From Paris. Probably because the war was started and she was afraid.
23:21She was worried.
23:25This is Gerta Benson.
23:27And that's Yonkel's granddaughter.
23:32So great. I love that picture.
23:34Yeah, it's a very nice picture.
23:36In addition to passports, Rita has housing records that show my family relocated from
23:41Aisputa to Riga well before World War II, which means they were gone before the Jewish population
23:47there was murdered. But what was their fate in Riga?
23:51But here you can see the date where they were all struck off.
23:57So when it says that they're struck off the register, what does that mean?
24:03It means that they were forced to move to the Gerta suburb and ended up in Rombola.
24:12In July 1941, Nazi troops took over Latvia, murdering 400 Jews in Riga and destroying every synagogue.
24:20In September and October, the Nazis rounded up the remaining Jews from across the city
24:25and moved them to the Riga ghetto, an old part of the city that they turned into a prison camp.
24:30In two actions, on the 30th of November and on the 8th of December 1941,
24:36more than 25,000 Latvian Jews and 1,000 German Jews were taken to the Rumbola forest six miles away.
24:44Tell me about Rumbola.
24:45It is a small place. It was a forest near to the railway station and all people from the ghetto
24:54were asked to put their belongings.
24:58They'd driven out and they were told that they were just removed to another place.
25:04They had to walk until the place where the graves were dead.
25:11And they were forced to undress and just to go into the graves and they were just shot there.
25:25These branches just ended with a war.
25:33So Shloma's family made it?
25:36Because they left.
25:44My family members were probably brought to the Rumbola forest?
25:50Right.
25:51And is there anything there now?
25:54Yeah, now there is a very large memorial.
25:58There is a big, big menorah and memorial stones with names of people perished there.
26:08It's heavy and it's a lot, but these are things that I wanted to know.
26:11I wanted to really have some closure about, you know, what happened with our family.
26:20And I do, and I'm still processing it in a major way.
26:23And I also have to tell my mom, which is like a big, it's a big deal.
26:30When I began this journey, I was hoping to find out more about my grandmother, Rita,
26:35and I'm astonished by how much more I've learned about my mother's side of the family.
26:40And as difficult as it's been, I'm grateful to share these stories with my mother and that
26:46the two of us can now visit this memorial and pay our respects to our family.
26:51I definitely feel like why, you know, why, why would it be them and not us?
26:56But then you also have to think we are here.
27:00There's got to be a reason we're here.
27:02I definitely feel like we've been given this opportunity to honor them.
27:07That's something.
27:08Somebody's got to remember them.
27:10I know.
27:10And how lucky, how fortunate for us that we can be the ones.
27:13I know.
27:16Senseless.
27:17Yeah, it's really, really, really senseless.
27:24I feel really strongly that this story can't be told enough because it's not just a story about
27:32losing people and it's not just a story about honoring your family, but it's really a story
27:39about how a lack of tolerance and fear and hatred and turning a blind eye can result in so much
27:46tragedy.
27:53I feel like it's a duty of somebody who is a very lucky descendant of people who made it through
28:01to keep telling the story.
28:05So,
28:31that's a story.