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00:07It's miserable. It's eight degrees. That's kind of what I like about it.
00:14You get into like a fight-or-flight kind of state and it kind of purifies every other unnecessary thought.
00:22Yeah, it just simplifies everything.
00:28Andrew Garfield is a celebrated Hollywood movie star.
00:32He lives between London and Los Angeles, but spent his childhood in Surrey with his parents Richard and Lynn Garfield
00:42and his older brother Ben.
00:45My dad is, he was my swimming coach.
00:51One of the things I'm most proud of in my life is my relationship with my dad.
00:55And for me swimming, I feel soothed by it. There's a nostalgia.
01:08It's me and my mum. That's one of my favourite photos of me and her together ever.
01:13I mean, that just kind of sums up the vibe.
01:17Not everyone gets that kind of mothering. I got lucky, lucky.
01:24Andrew's mum, Lynn, died in 2019.
01:28It's quite hard to talk about my mum and my relationship with her.
01:33Especially after she passed. She was pure kindness and care.
01:41And yeah, you know, she was the best of us. She was absolutely the best of us.
01:51Andrew shot to fame when he appeared in the movie The Social Network and has won multiple awards for his
01:58screen and stage work, including a Tony Award for his role in the play Angels in America.
02:04I want to see blood because I can't believe you even have blood in your veins until you show it
02:11to me.
02:11So don't come near me again.
02:14My nana, my dad's mum would always say, oh, he's going to go to clown college, isn't he?
02:18And I did go to clown college. Central School of Speech and Drama.
02:22It's nowhere near clown college. Very prestigious school.
02:25You know, just pretending, pretending to be people for a living. It was brilliant.
02:30Tea cozy and oven mitts. Very cool. Just an idiot, just needing constant attention.
02:38Andrew's most famous role to date is Spider-Man.
02:43That's me and my brother, Ben. A kind of prophetic image, for one of us anyway.
02:48My mum made my costume out of felt, my Spider-Man costume.
02:53I was, like, two and a half, maybe.
02:58They were so excited when I got that role.
03:03Because they knew what that character meant to me.
03:06They weren't nervous for me.
03:08Ooh!
03:13I don't know much about my family history.
03:16The furthest I can go back is granddad and grandma on my dad's side.
03:21And I know that there was an exodus from, I think, Poland to escape persecution.
03:31I feel a longing to connect more to my Jewish heritage on my dad's side.
03:36I'm really curious about that.
03:38There's large parts of my identity that I just feel quite far away from.
03:45And, um, in the pursuit of truth.
03:49I'm excited to pursue some maybe darker truths or, like, unknown truths.
03:53I'm really cool, Ben.
04:33Andrew has asked his dad Richard to come over and share anything he knows about their Jewish
04:39ancestors from Poland I'm excited I know who these people are so that's obviously that's granddad Sam
04:48and I couldn't remember Nana's name really she's just Nana to me my mother and father were Doris May
04:54Savage and originally Samuel Garfinkel Garfinkel they moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s
05:02before I was born got it he was a handsome fellow wasn't he he adored you and Ben yeah he
05:09was actually
05:09born in Poland in 1909 and emigrated to London shortly after he was born and his father was
05:17Ludwig Harry Garfinkel uh-huh that's a photograph of Ludwig Harry your great-grandfather it's the
05:24Garfinkel ears that's for sure which you don't have and your grandfather Samuel and Sam and his mother
05:35Sam's mom was your great-grandmother Sarah Kupchick this is her and both of those names got changed
05:43so Kupchick became Cooper oh and Garfinkel came Garfield came Garfield and that was as a result of
05:53both families wanting to westernize yeah their names being brought up in Los Angeles I had no idea when I
06:02was a little boy that my grandmother your great-grandmother's family went all immigrated your
06:09great-grandmother Sarah had a lot of siblings and Harry Cooper who was the first one to leave
06:18England to emigrate to the US yeah opened a shop in Beverly Hills which was a famous clothes store for
06:26women oh wow really yeah the creative connection there is really interesting to me I do know your
06:33great-grandfather Ludwig Garfinkel died shortly after I was born mm-hmm my father never really
06:40wanted to talk about it okay and I don't know why yeah it is one of the two subjects in
06:46the family it
06:47seems like maybe he went through some stuff that you're not aware of I think you're right so here's
06:51another photograph of Ludwig Harry but the two ladies with him are unknown and they could be his sisters
06:58hmm and what's really exciting is that there may be Garfinkels out in the world who we don't know
07:09about who are blood relations wow okay wow that's a beautiful photo it's gorgeous who is this lady we
07:16have no idea it's in Yiddish and I don't speak Yiddish it would be so good if one of us
07:21could read
07:21Yiddish one of us was a good Jew unfortunately neither of us are either of us in there is your
07:32great
07:33grandfather Ludwig Harry sent her back but the bottom right of that photograph identifies where it
07:40is in Kielsa Kielsa in southern Poland so your grandparents met in Kielsa correct I have no idea
07:49about Kielsa this is tantalizing this trail this whole other family I want to know everything on
07:55the Garfinkel side just like seeking the truth and trying to shine a light on the places where it's most
08:01dark you know the places that no one wanted to talk about that's where I want to go
08:08Andrew has learned that on his dad's side his Polish great-grandparents were Ludwig Garfinkel
08:13and Sara Kupczyk from Kielsa in Poland they emigrated to London when his granddad Sam was a baby
08:22Sara's parents and siblings also emigrated to London then later America and Sara's brother Harry was the
08:29first to go to Los Angeles where he changed his name to Cooper and worked in the fashion industry
08:36but Ludwig's family in Poland remain a mystery so Andrew is heading to his great-grandparents home
08:42the city of Kielsa in the south of the country to find out who they were and what became of
08:48them
08:51so we just arrived in Kielsa it does feel like a homecoming I do feel I don't know it feels
08:59familiar
08:59to me in some mysterious unknown way Andrew is meeting genealogist Matt and Sheffy at the National
09:09Museum of Kielsa to find out who his great-grandfather's family were hello how are you very well how are
09:17you
09:17nice to meet you nice to meet you too welcome to Kielsa thank you it's a really humble office that
09:23you
09:23have here this is wonderful so we have been doing some research in the Polish archives and we were able
09:29to find information about your great-grandfather and the family and to build a family tree that looks
09:36like this oh wow Aria Leibusch Am I saying that right yeah yeah Aria Leibusch Aria Leibusch wait so it's
09:48Garfin Kiel yes huh Aria Leibusch Garfin Kiel born 1888 is that my great-grandfather Ludwig Harry yes
09:58in Yiddish Yiddish so Shmuel Aaron born 1852 died 1904 and Shaya Guta yeah Chaya Guta
10:09Chaya Guta Shapiro yes exactly your great-great-grandparents and all of these basically are
10:16your great-great-uncle and aunts we had a theory that he must have had siblings but this is the
10:23first
10:23kind of proof that he absolutely did had a bunch of siblings six blood siblings Chandra Dvorah
10:34Basha Peretz Estera yes and Ruchler Ruchler Garfin Kiel yes actually Peretz the only brother who your
10:46great-grandfather had died at quite young age okay so Ludwig Harry had five sisters yes
10:53it's like kind of pulling up a trap door and finding a whole family line it's um quite moving
11:03Ruchler was born in 1904 which is the same year that my great-great-grandfather Shmuel Aaron Garfin Kiel
11:13passed away her father her father yeah and we have one record of marriage to one of the sisters
11:19Ruchler another Shmuel Shmuel Isaac Spielman yes oh okay so I have these photos this is Ludwig Harry
11:29Garfin Kiel and these two women have been a mystery to us so if we look at this picture and
11:38we try to
11:39analyze the how they dress this picture was taken somewhere between 1905 and 1909 okay 1905 and 1909 I
11:47mean assuming he looks like he looks 17 to me 18 to me and then maybe like his eldest sister
11:56Scheindler Scheindler who was born two years after Ludwig Harry and then Dvorah Dvorah and then we have
12:06this photo as well the same analysis of of her appearance and style and fashion it appears to be
12:14around 1929 1930 can you turn this back yes oh yeah this is the one that has the um the
12:19Hebrew on the
12:20back and do you speak Hebrew Yiddish Yiddish yeah same alphabet though I'm a bad Jew I'm sorry I don't
12:29think there's such a thing but there isn't a date on it but there is at the stamp it's a
12:35little cut
12:36yeah it says Warsaw cut off oh my god it's so tantalizing isn't it it's like being in a treasure
12:45hunt it's like being Indiana Jones with your own soul and this is Basha this is Basha Basha would be
12:5135 she's writing to Sami her nephew my grandfather Samuel yes exactly and her brother Ludwig his dad yes
13:01I'm wishing you and Sami I don't know this your sister Basha wishes you your son Sami congratulations
13:26may you have good fortune and happiness she sends you regards and kisses you from the depth of her
13:33heart now my beloved brother I ask that you send your dear mother news and regards from your entire
13:40family and a family picture from me your dear sister Basha gosh it is really loving the language is just
13:50so
13:50I don't know mushy we are a mushy family we're an easy cry the Garfin kills that's beautiful thank you
14:00I'm so happy to have
14:01that translated so this says to me that maybe there was correspondence that had been happening for many
14:07years wanting photos and those kinds of things yes Ludwig leaves around 1910 and he goes to another country which
14:15is I think a big
14:16decision in a family-wide I'll say it seems like he left his sisters and his mother a group of
14:25women here alone
14:30that's a big choice that's a big move obviously for anyone to make let alone to leave a family of
14:35women behind
14:35yeah I'm just wondering what happened to the other siblings I'm wondering what happened to
14:40my great-great-great-grandmother wondering I'm left wondering Andrew wants to find out why his great-grandfather Ludwig and
14:51his wife Sarah and
14:52son Sammy might have decided to emigrate in 1910 and leave their Jewish community
14:59hi so he's meeting Polish historian Katarzyna Persson at the former synagogue in Kielce
15:09it's quite haunting the energy of the place it feels like a lot has happened here it has not
15:15been used for worship since the Nazis desecrated the interior during World War two so these are the
15:23photos of the Jewish community here before the war oh wow so this building was built in early 20th
15:31century they served for 30 years as the as a place where people worship where they covered and through
15:37the center of the Jewish community of Kielce over 30 percent of the city was Jewish mm-hmm so this
15:46truly was a very very strong community yeah so it's very likely that your family have come here as well
15:53there's an aspect to this story that I find really compelling I suppose upsetting and it's my great
16:01grandfather Ludwig and his choice to leave his family back here I guess I'm curious about the
16:08motivation for that choice a large wave of anti-Jewish violence happening in that period in 1905 to 1907
16:15right there is in this part of Poland which part of the Russian Empire you have a massive wave about
16:22700
16:22pogroms against Jews in various localities people are scared there's constant tension and constant fear
16:28in the air these are very violent very difficult very turbulent times you may say I see there were more
16:35than a million and a half Jewish people in Poland when Andrew's great-grandparents were still living there
16:41and attacks on the Jewish community and their businesses by anti-semitic mobs were frequent over
16:483,000 were killed in pogroms so thinking about a man has a very young family you would understand why
16:56he would want to leave if he has a lot of people who are depending on him in many ways
17:02economically his
17:03mother and sisters he may want to leave in order to provide for them more easily to send money back
17:09and
17:09send money back absolutely yeah it's impossible position isn't it there's no there's no easy route
17:17and I'm I'm really curious about how families like mine survived well we found where they lived so if
17:26you'd like to come and see it I guess I guess so yeah I would absolutely love that thank you
17:32well
17:43we are here on the corner of two streets Vesała and Nicała and these are the streets that your family
17:51was very closely linked to we have Ruchaja a great-great-grandmother and her daughters they
17:57moved between rented rooms okay whatever they could afford right
18:17so this is where the remaining Garfinkels would have lived yes it's the only building remaining which
18:28you can trace back to your family we know for sure that they lived here and I imagine it was
18:34quite
18:35overpopulated quite crowded lots of people in close quarters it was quite poor yes yeah we know how the
18:43family made a living and you can find here in this register that's from 1913 it's from Vesała so the
18:50street which we just walked past what is this so this word shvachka means a seamstress which most
18:58likely works in the factory oh I see so it's quite hard work as you can imagine oh dearie me
19:03so my great
19:06great-great-grandmother Haja Garfinkel at this time in 1930 was 58 and she was a seamstress
19:13devoid a Garfinkel 35 years old seamstress and Estera Garfinkel 26 and a seamstress and all living
19:23together in one room or in a couple of rooms or I would assume in one room in one room
19:28yeah so that's
19:30two out of five five sisters so there are three still unaccounted for the eldest Scheindler we don't
19:38know where she is we don't know we have no record of her and then we have Basia who we
19:42know from that
19:43photograph at some point went to Warsaw so we know kind of ish what she's up to but there's no
19:50record
19:52here of Rukla is the only sister on record so far as we understand to have married is that maybe
19:58why
19:58she's not living here with her other sisters and her mom exactly she'll be living with her husband we
20:04have a document here this is this an obituary no what does this mean it's a death certificate oh
20:10it's this Rukla Spielman okay so that's my great great aunt's married name I can't tell like is it
20:19it's Portuguese it's Portuguese okay this is her okay fifth of June 1963 she died at 50 years of age
20:31Polish married to Samuel Spielman housewife she died in her home pulmonary edema congestive heart
20:40failure my gosh place of burial to be buried in the Israeli cemetery in Via Rosali in Rio de Janeiro
20:47in Brazil she leaves two sons of adult age Zhao and Adolfo what is important about her also is that
20:58she married into a very important family the Spielman's yes her husband was the first cousin
21:05of Wadislaw Spielman okay I don't know much about that family it was a very musical family
21:13Spielman was of course a famous pianist survivor of the Warsaw ghetto right then the author of a memoir
21:18and later a famous film the main character in the pianist that's crazy it's a fascinating family story
21:26that's absolutely wild so Ludwig was not the only child of this family to to leave to leave
21:34Kjeltsen to to emigrate in search of some kind of better life I suppose we have one more document
21:41okay which relates the other sister okay Estera Garfinkel what does this mean it's another death
21:50certificate certificate okay sorry have a yeah okay so Estera she died age 33 23rd of June 1935
22:04here in Kjeltsen and her place of death is this street is here yeah spouse no no spouse so yeah
22:12she
22:12wasn't married course of death general that's a wasting of muscles wasting of muscles in 1935 the
22:21situation wasn't great it was a lot of poverty it was an economic crisis we know she was unmarried she
22:29still lived with her elderly mother right my great great grandmother was still alive she was still alive
22:35at that point we have record of her from 1935 taking care of her I imagine yeah gosh and then
22:42Dvoira we don't know we have no record of her just but for the grace of God you know it's
22:49who knows the
22:50mystery of why one person ends up in Rio de Janeiro one person ends up in the east end of
22:54London one
22:55person ends up dying here the age of 33 whoo yeah Andrew has discovered that his great-great-aunt Rukla
23:05emigrated to Brazil with her husband small Spielmann and had two sons he's also discovered that his
23:12great-great-grandmother Haya was living alone in Kielsa after the death of her daughter Estera in 1935
23:20there are no records for the whereabouts of her other daughters Scheindler Dvoira and Basha at this time
23:28life was increasingly difficult for the Jewish community in the late 1930s the Polish government
23:34restricted their economic activity calling for boycotts of Jewish businesses which in turn encouraged
23:41anti-semitic violence from nationalist groups I have something else to show you oh I don't know if I can
23:46handle it it's been a heavy day um but yes this is why we're here please show me whatever you
23:53want
23:53to show me the mean streets of Kielsa yes hardcore the hardcore origins of my uh that's exactly where
24:08you're from wow okay I want to show you something okay look at this map yeah this is the street
24:15we're
24:16on yeah we're exactly here on this corner okay and you know this area no I don't this is the
24:23ghetto of Kielsa so if Haya or any of her daughters that we can't account for who are in Kielsa
24:32in 1941
24:33mm-hmm they were all forcibly moved into the ghetto Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and the
24:43following month the Nazi regime began targeting the Jewish community and separating them into ghettos
24:49across Polish towns and cities the largest in Warsaw imprisoned almost half a million Jewish people in a
24:58handful of streets and in 1941 the Holocaust came to Kielsa with construction of a Jewish ghetto in the town
25:10so that's where the ghetto wall would have been we have a picture here as well and that's that picture
25:18of people going to get home what year is this it's 1941 as you can see they have those bags
25:26with whatever
25:27belongings they could take with them very little and they forced to move into their closed horribly
25:35overcrowded ghetto area so do we know do we have any any records or knowledge that that any of my
25:46family members were still here in 1941 like my great-great-grandmother my great-great-aunts doing
25:52do we have any idea if they were in fact still here in Kielsa we can't tell the story ends
25:57in 1935
25:58as was often the case with with Jewish records the vast majority of cases just simply disappeared in the
26:05ghetto there was no trace of them left it strikes me in this moment that if Ludwig Harry hadn't decided
26:20to
26:21to leave Kielsa with with Sammy with little Sammy you know my father would have never been born yeah
26:33I would have never been born my brother would have never been born I want to know I want to
26:41know exactly
26:42what happened I want to know exactly what each of these women went through
26:55I'm just gonna call my dad quickly update him this is a lot to share
27:03hi hi hi hi can you hear me all right so I have a lot to tell you okay 1935
27:12is the last record of
27:16this part of the family in Poland in Kielsa because where they were living
27:27was literally across the street from the the wall of what became the Kielsa ghetto I know this is a
27:39lot
27:39how you doing yeah me too I'm with you so I haven't talked to you about Ruchler yet she married
27:47a
27:47Spielman do you remember the movie the pianist I do very well yeah it's a great movie Ruchler married
27:55his cousin she married the cousin of that of the guy that Adrian Brody played but also Ruchler I saw
28:03her death certificate oh yeah she died in I think 1963 but she got out she died in Rio de
28:15Janeiro
28:25oh yeah yeah yes this this is the story of our family it is a roller coaster this journey is
28:33really extraordinary yeah
28:38Andrew has no further Polish records for his Garfin Kiel family so the only way to potentially find out
28:45more information is to track down any surviving family of Ruchler the team genealogist has managed
28:53to find a surviving son Adolfo who is 92 years old now and living with his daughter Lydia in Florida
29:03but do they know anything about what happened to Ruchler's mother his great-great-grandmother
29:08and his great-grandfather's missing sisters Scheindler Devoira and Basha
29:19hello hello hi so so crazy I I've been learning so much about about this side of the family that
29:28I had
29:28no idea I've obviously I didn't know that you guys existed you probably didn't know that I existed or
29:34that that we we were connected in any way
29:36we are so excited
29:38I would love to see a photograph of of Ruchler if you if you have one
29:42this is Ruchler with both sons
29:46that's amazing she was the most wonderful mother that somebody could expect
29:54because I'm just trying to fill in the holes of what you know about her siblings or her mother that
30:00that she was leaving behind and you can see here the picture of my grandmother your great-grandfather's
30:10mother Ruchler's mother this was the mother of Ruchler that's that's Chaya yes yes she went to Brazil
30:19she went to Brazil she did what year did she come to Brazil 36 1936 they were they were able
30:28to bring
30:28her with a lot of effort my grandfather had to sell his saxophone and they were able to secure her
30:38and this
30:39is my father and this is my uncle with her in Brazil oh my gosh so so I know so
30:47Haya made it made
30:48it out of Keltzer yeah he did oh my gosh so this is a postcard photo of Basha
31:03but I don't know what's happened to Basha I um but she was in she was in Warsaw did Ruchler
31:09ever
31:10talk about or hear what word from her other sisters I knew that she has two sisters married
31:18living in Russia and they wanted to come to Brazil who were the two sisters that married and lived in
31:25Warsaw I don't know the names so just for me to be clear there are two sisters one of them
31:32is most likely
31:33Basha maybe Dvoira maybe Scheindler who were married and and moved to Warsaw yes according to to my father
31:42they were well financially and my grandparents were trying very hard to bring them to us in Brazil
31:50Brazil so they tried their best but you couldn't get them to to Brazil the visas for them to come
32:01was very difficult Brazil was not very fun of Jews you know you were receiving letters from the two
32:09other sisters from Warsaw yes they were communicating with with Ruchler there was an attempt to get them out
32:16out of Warsaw to bring them to Brazil it seemed to fail um because of passport issues with the Brazilian
32:25government yes but they stopped to receive in letters they didn't correspond anymore this was a signal that
32:36they were dead and had been murdered been murdered during during the holocaust in in Warsaw that so that's
32:46that's what yeah that's what we know okay okay
32:53the family believed that two of the Garfinkel sisters had their visas denied as a result of an
32:59anti-semitic immigration policy introduced by the government of president Zetulio Vargas in 1937
33:08just one year after Andrew's great-great-grandmother higher made it to Brazil it's estimated that 16 000
33:16desperate European Jews who were trying to flee the holocaust had their visas for Brazil denied
33:24now he knows the likely fate of at least two of his great-grandfather's sisters
33:30Andrew is traveling to a holocaust memorial site at the former death camp of Treblinka in the northeast of Poland
33:39this was the final destination for most of the surviving jews
33:43when the kielsa and warsaw ghettos were emptied by the nazis
33:56we're arriving at Treblinka now so i'll let you know how that goes and i'll hold tight yeah
34:01while you're in there this is very important that i'm holding your hand yeah and your mother's holding
34:08your hand or hand your brother yeah okay especially going to that place all right sweetie love you all
34:14right bye thank you bye bye
34:24Treblinka is now a place for collective remembrance for those who disappeared
34:34more than a million holocaust victims have never been identified and all of the records for those
34:41taken to this death camp were deliberately destroyed by the nazis along with the gas chambers
34:51over 700 000 people are estimated to have been murdered here
35:02so
35:41This is a memorial stone for the Jews from Kielce that met their ultimate fate here in
35:54Treblinka which my great-grandfather's three sisters we imagine had to have been murdered
36:20Scheindler, Dvoire and Barscher that their lives were deemed so valueless and they were
36:33attempted the Nazis attempted to erase
36:39even the memory of them even their names even any record of them and they had succeeded
36:48in a certain way they were just normal girls they were just normal women that wanted a life that
36:53wanted to live to thrive but this journey that we've been on has um
37:02has recovered um my memory of them and my family's memory of them and
37:11very grateful for that yeah Scheindler
37:21Dvoire
37:26and Barscher
37:28I wish I had known you better
37:33I wish you peace
37:48having learnt the identity and fate of his great-grandfather ludwig garfinkel's family
37:53in poland andrew now wants to find out about ludwig's wife his great-grandmother sarah's family
38:00the kupchiks andrew knows they also came from kielce but emigrated long before the second world war
38:07and the horrors of the holocaust
38:14they went first to london and then to los angeles in america
38:18where they changed their name to koopa
38:24okay it's a little change of scenery
38:28we just landed in los angeles
38:35and i've had a relationship with this place since then but also since i started working here
38:44but i'm curious about my deeper roots here and from my understanding it was my dad's great uncle
38:53harry kupchik that was the first of the kupchiks to emigrate from
38:59london to los angeles and and set up shop here that's that's literally all i've got so
39:05i hope i pray that um they made a good life here
39:14he's meeting caroline loose an expert on the history of the jewish community in l.a
39:20at the wiltshire boulevard temple
39:26hi hi welcome so nice to meet you thanks for having me have a seat thank you wow
39:31what an amazing room it's pretty dramatic so the murals were funded by the warner family
39:40this dome was funded by one of the executives at mgm
39:45it kind of embodies a sort of hollywood moment
39:53so yeah so i've been told that my great great uncle harry kupchik my great grandmother sarah's
39:59younger brother was the first of my family to emigrate yes so this is um a document you'd file
40:08after you had emigrated expressing your interest in becoming a citizen oh wow okay
40:13does that say hymen coupin stick coupin stock mm-hmm harry cooper age 23 years old was born in kielsa
40:24russia poland on the 15th day of may 1896. wow i arrived at the port of new york on or
40:32about the 18th day
40:33of december 1919. occupation ladies taylor
40:39um okay so my dad had mentioned that he thought that the the the kupchiks had a uh a tailoring
40:46fashion kind of connection background because of the studios here in la they were attracting some
40:53of the trendiest designers and and most skilled folks in the garment trades he comes into la at a
40:59really exciting moment in the city in part because hollywood had become such a thriving industry
41:0780 percent of domestic film production was happening in la by the time he arrives
41:11mm-hmm and we know your great great uncle harry worshipped here this was a temple frequented by
41:19studio owners and you can see how that might have helped build him a reputation in hollywood
41:25he was on that on that hustle culture he was on the grind he established a shop of his own
41:31on
41:31hollywood boulevard and later here in beverly hills just right down the street and this was a time when
41:38wilshire boulevard was called the fifth avenue of the west oh my god really in the hottest spot in town
41:44dang that's a proper store the harry cooper a distinguished name for 20 years in hollywood
41:52mm-hmm harry cooper will feature creations by the foremost american designers of fashion for the
41:57american woman that is a hot store mm-hmm yeah he got out of kilts there that's for sure i
42:03love this
42:04harry mm-hmm it's very lovely to to see a success story so he was the first and he he
42:11left england in
42:121919 so i guess i'm curious who came next and when we did find in the 1930 census some coopers
42:21who had
42:22made their way to los angeles so yeah looks like the family arrived in 1922 three years after harry
42:29does the first recce so anna and simon cooper must be my
42:40great grandmother sarah's parents so they must be my great great grandparents
42:46mm-hmm and then these must be my great grandmother sarah's siblings jake gertrude morris alfred
42:56and marion so they're my great great aunts and uncles on the kupchik side or the cooper stick side
43:02or the cooper side and um yeah sarah's back in i am i think still in london raising my granddad
43:10sammy
43:11so occupation on taylor salesman taylor so yeah taylor's and okay yeah my guess would be that harry
43:18actually invited them to come join him and work at the store as he tried to build it oh really
43:23come
43:25here remake yourself you can be anything you want to be the world is your oyster live how you want
43:29to
43:30live that's part of the romance and allure that la has promoted and attracted from the beginning it was
43:36like that for my father it was like that for me okay so then there's this bernard tabor who i've
43:41never heard of who seems to be a grandson of anna and simon yeah bernard tabor would have been
43:49same generation as my granddad samuel sammy so i suppose bernard and sammy would have been cousins
43:56so yeah i don't but i've never heard anything about bernard and it's never curious about that too
44:04andrew has discovered that his great great grandparents simon and anna cooper joined harry
44:10in la and that his great grandmother sarah's siblings jake gertrude morris and alfred also worked in the
44:18fashion business there and he's found out that his granddad sam's cousin bernard emigrated as well
44:26the youngest brother of the siblings was alfred cooper and the team genealogist to track down his
44:32daughter kathy who still lives in la so andrew is coming to meet her hi hi and her cousin jan
44:46to see
44:47what else they can share about her family's life in america would you like to see some photos yeah
44:52i would love to see some photos so this picture this is grandma cooper yes my grandmother and your
45:00great great grandmother and she continued to dress in a fashion that was comfortable for her from the
45:06old country but it's really still so elegant look see these spikes are coming out of her back and sundays
45:15we would go over there and she would like almost have a nervous breakdown because she had a kosher
45:20kitchen yeah she always disciplinarian don't come into my kitchen you little filthy rats but in yiddish
45:27yes but in yiddish so we don't you got it you you got the message look in the eye you
45:32know it was like
45:33yeah yeah grandma cooper was the driving force moving the family from poland to england and she
45:41knew that she couldn't take money so she converted that into diamonds and hid them in her stockings
45:48and that paid the fare for everyone from poland to england this is aunt gertr's uncle harry's sister
45:56gertrude is another sibling yes she worked in uncle harry's store and she was stunning stunning she was
46:03glamorous when harry opened his beverly hills store it was the most glamorous store it was a big open almost
46:12like a ballroom with a spiral staircase that was the center of attention and a big chandelier above it
46:22and aunt gertie who was often modeling the clothes oh really would sweep down the staircase with her
46:30cigarette holder out to here and she could float and twirl that ball gown and be so elegant and beautiful
46:40so between harry and my dad they had all the stars from all ages i know marilyn monroe was a
46:47client of
46:48uncle harry elizabeth taylor came into the store when i was working ava gardner really yeah can i ask
46:56something i saw the name bernard on a census showing the kupchiks coming over from london to to la he
47:03was
47:03the youngest child and he was 12. bernard was aunt sadie's son and this is bernard with grandma cooper because
47:09aunt sadie sent him over because she stayed in the uk and later they sent for her to come to
47:17america
47:17bernard's last name is still is still cooper taper taper taper bernard um in the u.s had a fabulous
47:25education and became uh quite the scholar bernard was a very successful journalist and writer he was an
47:33author he was an author and a very prominent person in the arts we coopers don't do anything mediocre
47:42it's so wonderful hearing this that i come to this neurotic need to succeed i like this
47:54those two kathy and jan are just the spirit is very full and um it's kupchik like
48:03like drive out of poverty out of difficulty out of suffering and into a life of we deserve
48:12the sunshine we deserve uh to have all of our family around us it's um it's very very beautiful
48:21so now my interest has been kind of captured by my granddad's cousin bernard and at the beginning of
48:27this journey i was hoping to find other ancestors other other kind of family members that were drawn
48:36into the world of art and creativity and it seems like him as a as a journalist as an author
48:44was deeply connected to to that world um so i feel this kind of mysterious kind of kinship there
48:52emerging that i would like to to know more about i suppose
49:00andrew's come to the getty art museum to meet curator anna bottinelli to try and find out more about
49:07bernard's connection to the art world how are you nice to meet you nice to meet you nice to meet
49:11you
49:12oh god have a chat today yes let me show you two photos this is bernard taper
49:19when he was a lieutenant with the u.s army during world war ii okay oh wow in 46 he
49:26was assigned on a
49:27special mission okay and i have a document that might give you a little bit of an idea of what
49:36the special mission was about office of military government for germany office 8th july 1946
49:4246 okay so to go to munich for approximately 30 days to conduct investigation of art looting activities
49:52and search for lost cultural materials in bavaria okay so he was some of a special mission to
49:58investigate potential art looting well uh he joined the monuments fine arts and archives program of the
50:09allied army does that ring a bell the monuments men there you go yeah have you seen the movie i
50:14haven't seen the movie actually i must now um but i i because i heard it was wonderful oh that's
50:20wild
50:21he was one of those guys he was one of those guys that's so great so while world war ii
50:28was
50:29happening and germany was invading countries hitler had this big plan of stealing art from all of the
50:37occupied countries and put them in his what he called the feudal museum right and so he set up this
50:44art loading machine um stealing works of art from all over europe so here you can see for instance this
50:51is hitler and gering looking at one of the paintings this was a specifically gifted to hitler for his
50:57birthday oh it's so dark and here they are shopping for art that's being taken from jews that are being
51:04dispossessed of everything they own and this is just a birthday gift one of too many every aspect
51:12radiates evil the monuments men were a crack team of specialists including art experts and museum curators
51:21who joined the u.s army to track down these stolen pieces hidden in castles and even salt mines in
51:28germany and austria since you haven't seen monuments men this um is monuments man george stout who's
51:36actually george cloney in the movie so um when you'll watch it you'll know that his character is um
51:43inspired by him what an amazing mission treasure hunting what was the skill set that meant that
51:50bernard was selected for this for this mission well he spoke and understood german something that he
51:56taught himself listening to the radio how old was he at this point he was 28 but he was also
52:02a trained
52:03investigative journalist and so he knew how to ask questions he knew how to get to the truth he knew
52:10how to tell when someone wasn't telling the truth oh wow and he interrogated after the world the highest
52:18members of the nazi party i just love the fact that he was selected to interrogate these war criminals these
52:26murderers these and and and and just the kind of the poetic justice of that and his his investment in
52:34that as a obviously as a jew and and as someone who benefited from his family escaping poland before
52:45before world war ii on behalf of his family on behalf of those that were lost
52:51and um extract extract the truth from these people that um extracted so much from his ancestry
53:00the fact the monuments men by the end of their mission they had returned four million objects
53:05wow to the families that have been um not all of them survived but still they allowed uh to rebuild
53:11from from something that belonged to them yeah would you like to see a work of art that bernard's
53:18investigation helped recover yeah i would love that come with me okay thank you
53:32well there are a few paintings in this museum with a connection with bernard this is a painting by
53:37gian battista tiepolo an italian master alexander the great and it belonged to a jewish collector in paris
53:51it was thanks to bernard that it was then returned in 47 eventually made its way to the getty
53:57the restorative justice just feels really nice doesn't it for certain
54:03well this is something bernard wrote after the war that considering what you just said i think it
54:09will resonate with you so i was proud of the work that our mfa and a agency had done and
54:15remain proud
54:16our efforts to try to tidy up in the world of art at any rate oh yeah
54:26oh dear
54:28yeah
54:31in the world of art at any rate some small part of the epic mess that had been made seemed
54:37to me to have
54:38been meaningful behavior
54:41it was good i thought that amid all the sickening evidence of man's depravity
54:47and destructiveness i should have had the opportunity to help preserve some of the things
54:52mankind had done that one could not that one could not only bear to contemplate but even take joy in
55:00it doesn't get better than that but what a beautiful writer god it's just like
55:08yeah you weren't kidding that resonates
55:13bernard in his words here is clarified and reminded me of something about how i want to live ultimately
55:44i'm sad this is over actually or maybe it's just beginning i couldn't have ended on a better
55:50note i mean it's a story that has everything the story of the garfinkels and the kupchiks
55:57it's epic there's nothing missing it's it's a story of immigration it's a literal story of survival
56:08it's a story of escape it's a story of terrible tragedy and suffering it's a story of extermination
56:17and murder and death and loss and then with the coopers here in la it's a story of elegance and
56:25beauty
56:26and art and the golden age of hollywood and success and aspiration and then with bernard it becomes
56:38this story of this full circle of healing and i wasn't able to feel my belonging without my knowledge
56:46of them it's shining a light on all of the beauty and the longing and the desire for life that's
56:53come before me that actually lives in my bones lives in my blood and it's like several great movies
57:02stories in the garfinkel-kupchik bloodline
57:12so
57:40ORGAN PLAYS
57:45ORGAN PLAYS