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[Randy] Do my kids think I'm-- yeah.

I mean everybody in the family thinks I'm nuts.

Of course, I'm nuts. I go to genealogy conferences.

So they-- they have these conferences and I always joke

that there are just two types of people at the conference.

There are the people who know they're crazy

and the people who have no idea that they're crazy.

I at least know I'm crazy.

[upbeat music playing]

[Randy] Genealogy's a kids task in school, right?

You get an assignment, go do your family tree.

And most people have like a little tiny family tree.

And I was eight years old and my mom's mom knew

a lot about her family and gave me a number of generations

back and-- and had this huge tree on my mom's side.

And then on my dad's side, it was 1974 and there

was some new books that were published

just that year for my grandfather's centennial.

So I came back to school and I had this enormous family tree.

And you know how it is in school when, like, when you're

better at something than other people, that becomes your thing.

So like genealogy became my thing.

I wish it had been baseball or basketball

or something more fun.

And that's how it started.

♪

How can I help you?

Uh, I'm looking for someplace to stay.

Passport and visa, please.

[sentimental music playing]

[Randy] I always have been interested in memory.

That there's a future and a past and a present.

I think a lot of times we're stuck in

our present, but to realize that you're

part of this continuum of history is eye-opening.

It's very moving to be in the city

where my family lived for hundreds of years.

Just to imagine that they were here

like I'm here now in this very space,

it's just something that doesn't happen so much where I come

from in Los Angeles, but I get that feeling here.

[jazz music playing]

[Randy] I've been married for 25 years and we have three kids.

Uh, Dora who's 24,

and Nathan who's 21, almost 22.

You can see it sort of trickling through a little bit.

Dora with her work, Remember Us, which is this group that pairs

up kids having bar/bat mitzvahs with victims of the Holocaust.

[upbeat jazz music playing]

♪

[Randy] And Joey's just, you know, starting out.

He's been looking forward, I think, to the rest

of his life, learning to be a chef.

We've lived in this house for, well,

since 2005 and we're very happy here.

Pam, my wife, had a photography gallery for a long time.

[upbeat jazz music]

Just go around but like alternate

between the apples and the beets.

Well, you were reaching first, you pass.

Where does this tablecloth come from?

I know. Where did-- where did you find the tablecloth?

Upstairs.

You have to pour the sauce onto the--

[Randy] No, first I have to give a toast 'cause

I'm about to leave for Vienna.

And then Joey's gonna come meet me.

First to the Schoenberg Center for

the board meeting that I have there.

And then I'm gonna drag him along on a roots trip.

Keep going and try to find out how far I can go back.

So that's-- that's the plan.

It's either that or going to school.

- [Joey] Okay. - [Randy] Okay.

So the end of your senior year.

- [Joey] Dad, shut up. - So, okay, so there you are.

Anyway, cheers, uh, everybody,

and thank you, Joey, for this amazing dinner.

[Joey] Well, my dad decided to take this trip

throughout Europe to find graves and family members.

And my sister was having surgery in a couple weeks

and Nathan had missed a couple semesters

in the past and so I was the last one left.

[music ends]

[Randy] You can have that sort of out of body experience

and you have chills because you have that instant connection.

You're in the place where your family was

being back there 500 years earlier.

[tires screeching]

When you then extend and are able to go back

500 years, you realize it's not just

a single family story, it's a people.

We're part of this larger mosaic.

That's the feeling I get when I look at it.

[sentimental music playing]

I was very instrumental in helping

to set up the Schoenberg Center when

it moved from University of Southern California to Vienna.

And now I'm on the board.

And so I'm interested in

making sure that it lasts into the future

and still accomplishes what it was designed to accomplish,

which is to preserve my grandfather's legacy

and make it accessible to the public in--

in the best possible way.

Sometimes it's terrific to be a Schoenberg

and to be connected to all these things.

And other times you get attention that you don't deserve

'cause your grandfather's famous

or your great-grandfather's famous.

So yeah. Now I get that.

[classical piano music playing]

[Randy] My maternal grandmother,

her grandparents were married in the 1880s

and when I went for the first time

and looked at the actual record books

from Max and Clementina Schwartz,

I saw that the very next entry was his younger brother.

It was actually two brothers got married on

the same day in this synagogue.

That was a hundred, uh, 40 years ago.

The Seitenstettengasse synagogue's the only synagogue

that still exists in Vienna from the time before the Nazis.

And that's because, on November 9th, 1938,

there was the famous Kristallnacht pogrom.

Nazis all over the city,

went around and burned every other synagogue.

The story is that the fire marshal came and stopped

the Nazis from burning this down because he said,

"If you burn this down,

you're gonna burn down the church next door."

It's the last one left.

It's the last remnant of that one great Jewish community

that was 200,000 Jews, really one of the largest

and also one of the most important

Jewish communities in the world.

And our family played such a huge part in that

until the Nazis came and took everything away.

But this synagogue, it's just a reminder of that splendor.

I just feel very attached to the city.

Some people ask why you're Jewish?

How can you like Austria?

How can you like Vienna after everything that happened?

And I just remember my grandmother

saying when she came back with us one time,

she said, you know, she-- she loved Austria

and she would never let the Nazis take that away from her.

And so I guess I feel that a little bit too.

[Dora] What I do is when kids have bar/bat mitzvahs,

sometimes they wanna remember a child

who didn't get to bar/bat mitzvah age

because they were killed in the Holocaust.

And so they submit a request on our website

and I go through and do research on Yad Vashem.

So it's really important that we make connections

with rabbis and synagogues.

I think that that's a gift

that you're giving to other people.

The greatest tragedies are actually the--

the people who have nobody left to remember them.

A person dies multiple times.

They die when their life physically ends.

They also die the very last time that they're ever remembered.

And it's up to us as a Jewish people to make sure

that all of our relatives collectively

never endure that final death.

[soft electronic music playing]

[Joey] In fifth grade, I did a presentation

on Arnold Schoenberg.

I knew he was famous, but I didn't know like

anything about him up until that point.

So I went home and googled Arnold Schoenberg

and then my teacher was like, "What's the relation

to you and Arnold Schoenberg?"

And I said, "Oh, he's my great-grandfather."

And one of the teachers turned around and she was like,

"Me and my husband love him."

And it's like, "Oh, cool."

- [Randy] Joey. - [Joey] Hi.

- [Randy] You made it. - [Joey] I did.

[Randy] Let's go. I got that.

[applause]

Wow, that was terrific.

I wanna thank my friends Sabina and Johannes

for performing this wonderful concert for us here today.

And I'm lucky today to have my son, Joey,

here for the first time.

And really looking forward to our trip that we're gonna take.

We're-- we're going on a little bit of a roots trip

starting in Vienna and then exploring in Prague

and looking at cemeteries

and archives and documents and we'll see how far back we get.

And we have here today, my cousins, Arnie Schoenberg,

all the way from San Diego,

and Serena Nono, who's from Venice, Italy,

representing the three branches of our family.

["Schoenberg: Phantasy For Violin And Piano,

Op.47" by Gilbert Kalish and Joseph Silverstein playing]

[Joey] I am sure there's gonna be some graves

and archives that I'm going to be so bored at,

but hopefully, I'll grow to like--

No, I will never like going into cemeteries.

I can look at pictures of graves.

But like going in there is like, it's like Halloween vibes.

It's, like, weird.

It's, like-- like I don't believe in,

like, ghosts but, like, feels awkward.

[Randy] With Joey, I'm hoping for him when

he goes in, let's say, the Altneuschul,

it's the oldest active synagogue in Europe.

My ancestors were there, they were married there, they--

they prayed there and you're in that building.

It has an effect on me.

So we'll see if it has an effect on Joey also.

[applause]

[soft eclectic music playing]

[Joey] I think for me, at least, tracing my family

history gives me an entrée into the history of the world.

It makes it a little more special when I go around

and imagine that they were there in the very same place with me.

[Randy] You're named after him.

[Joey] My middle name.

[Randy] You're Joseph Samuel Schoenberg

after your great-great-grandfather.

[Joey] My great-grandfather, Samuel Schoenberg.

It's the beginning of my grandfather

Arnold Schoenberg's family tree.

So it's him and his parents, Samuel Schoenberg

and Pauline Nachod, and then their parents,

Abraham and Theresia Schoenberg, and Paulina's parents,

Josef Nachod and Karoline Jontof-Hutter.

Pauline was from Prague and we're gonna be going there

to try to explore her family history.

[woman] This would be, uh, Schoenberg's mother Pauline.

And this is Samuel Schoenberg.

Here, Joey, you see that? Look at that.

He's got a little mustache, a little bit long hair.

It looks a little bit, you know, radical.

We are a rebellious family.

So Joey, this is the original study

of Arnold Schoenberg in the Rockingham House,

you know where Mima and Umpa live.

And when I was growing up as a kid, it was all walled up.

When they built the Schoenberg Institute,

they moved everything over.

So this is all the original stuff that was in

there that-- that he used when he composed.

- [Joey] Very cool. - [Randy] And neat.

Makes me feel like home.

[sentimental music playing]

[soft classical music playing]

[Randy] Serena, you were there

at the-- at the unveiling in '74?

[Serena] Yeah, there's a little film, super eight film.

I don't know who filmed it.

I am in it. I'm putting down flowers on the Zone.

And your parents are in it.

Nuria is in it. And Sylvia I think too.

- And Rudi. - [Randy] And Uncle Rudi, yeah.

[together] Yeah.

[Randy] Lucky you were there.

I think it was my dad's first time in Vienna.

- [Serena] Really? - Yeah. Yeah.

They came for the unveiling.

[Serena] They all looked very young.

[Randy] Yeah, they were. [laughs]

They were younger than we are now.

- [Serena] And beautiful. Yeah. - [Randy] Yeah. Amazing.

Do you know why he's not in the music section?

I think there must have been a big political thing at

the city council when they-- when they gave him

the honorary grave, because why wouldn't he be with

Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert?

He's actually born in-- in Vienna, but I think they didn't

want to have either a Jew or a modern composer.

Probably a combination of the two.

This is the first gate of the central cemetery

that's in Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

And I have over a dozen direct ancestors because also

my mom's side is all buried here.

[man] So we are at Zentralfriedhof gate one,

group five B, and looking for a special section,

row seven, grave number 40.

People who died 1884 to 1885.

- [Serena] Hmm. - [man] Josef Nachod.

[Randy] Oh, wow. There he is.

[man] Josef...

[speaking Hebrew]

Josef Nachod, son of Gabriel Nachod,

who was from Prague and died here in Vienna in 1884.

How is he related to us, Randy?

Joseph is Arnold's grandfather.

He's the father of Pauline who is our grandfather's mother.

So Joseph is our grandfather's grandfather.

He's our great-great-great-grandfather.

He came and brought the family when he was retired, I guess,

uh, from Prague to Vienna around I think 1869 we think.

And then like a year later, uh, Samuel Schoenberg

married Pauline Nachod, his daughter.

And then a couple years later, Arnold was born in 1874.

This is still here.

[Serena] So I think that's the story really.

People have to migrate.

[Randy] A long time ago, it used to be very hard

to find any of the graves because it was all grown over.

Remember Wolf-Erich, when we used to come here

and there were-- Wolf-Erich would

bring his shears and start cutting away the--

the leaves and the trees so you could get to the grave.

But now they've cleaned it up because,

for 50 years after the war, no one had done anything.

Like you said, their DNA is still

somehow there growing up in the grass.

So I think that-- that idea of having the--

the ancestor recorded with the text

and what they did is great and fascinating

and the story of their life.

But-- but also having the physical sense of,

you know, part of my DNA is underground

here in these bones that I could dig that up

and find that DNA that's has been passed down to me.

I don't feel that when I'm home in California, right.

You don't feel like the soil in California is part of you.

But you come here in-- in Vienna and like

our-- our family is in the dirt, right?

It's in the-- it's in the soil.

It's in the air somehow.

Closed.

Now what?

I've been trying to get permission for weeks

from the Jewish community here

and it's driving me nuts, actually.

We have a film permit and we've been contacting them.

First, they said they were too busy with Ukrainians,

then they said it's Passover.

And we said that's fine.

We'll-- we'll just film and we'll work out

all the paperwork afterwards.

And I-- I called the, uh, the head of the community

and he said, uh, we can't go in.

And I said, "Why?"

And he said, "Because the Jewish community

has made a decision not to let me in."

And I said, "Who made the decision? Was it you?"

He said, "The decision has been made.

The decision won't change."

So-- so here's a cemetery that my family

founded here in Vienna.

The first grave and the third grave are members of my family.

Many of my ancestors are buried here.

The Biedermann family, the Sinzheim family,

the Funk family, the grandfather of my grandfather,

Arnold Schoenberg, Abraham Schoenberg,

the first Schoenberg to come here to Vienna.

He was born in Hungary and he died here in,

uh, I think 1871.

And he's buried here also.

Um, but can't go in.

[man] So Randy helped raise money for this project.

- Of course. - [man] Can you speculate as to

why they won't let him inside?

[chuckles]

No idea.

No idea.

This was a jungle.

The money for fixing the cemeteries is something

I worked on in 2000 and finally, it's being done.

And here we are in 2022 and it's cleaned up

and they won't let me in.

These are people I know

that I've been friends with for 20 years

and I'm just in shock.

It's just, it's tragic.

The-- the Jews who live in Vienna now, um,

live unfortunately in a very fearful state.

Sometimes there've been attacks on them and-- and

so they're very, um, tight and among themselves

and I guess I'm still considered an outsider

even though all four of my grandparents were from Vienna.

And, uh, my family lived here for

hundreds and hundreds of years.

So I don't think there's much more I can say.

[somber music playing]

["Rainy Year" by Josh Kramon playing]

[church bell tolling]

[indistinct chatter]

- [words on screen] - In the back.

[words on screen]

[kid speaks words on screen]

[end call tone]

[heavy rock music playing]

[man] So a little bit thickness.

And then we start with the--

and we need this and let's try.

It's your job.

So that should cook slowly.

What kind of tattoo are you thinking of?

What do you want on your skin?

Well, I want kind of like a clip art of my intestines.

Kind of like near my appendix or on my thigh because,

uh, because of my Crohn's.

Like I don't want any-- just any tattoo on me.

I want something that's really true to me.

- Which has a meaning, yeah. - Yeah.

And inte-- my intestines have definitely impacted my life.

Not the real topic for dinner, is it?

- No, not really. - But--

I mean, it's always a topic at my house.

- [speaking foreign language] - Ready?

- You have beer? - Uh, yes.

- I've got a beer already. - [woman] Wolfie?

I don't.

I didn't know if I'd still be able to be a chef,

but I've learned how to cook for myself

and I hope to share that with people.

[man] But it smells good. Huh? What do you think?

[Joey] Uh, maybe a little bit longer.

[man] Yeah, it needs some time.

[woman] Yeah. Joey, you sit here, the second chair.

You sit here. [man] Oh, perfect. Perfect.

I just want to say welcome to everybody.

And as Randy wants to-- to welcome always.

Hilde. It's Hilde Spiel painted by Lisel Salzer.

We love this picture.

And Hilde is always with us.

She was the most famous writer from Austria.

In our house at home,

we also have paintings by Lisel Salzer,

but of my great-great-grandfather,

of my great-grandmother, of my grandmother, of my mother,

and of me and my sister, all-- all in the house.

So when I come here and I see Lisel Salzer painting

and it makes me feel like home.

To bring these paintings also to-- to-- to Austria,

this would be amazing.

But because Randy is doing a genealogical movie,

I think we should invest a little bit of time

just for anyone here on the table for 30 seconds,

describe why genealogy is so important for you.

I'm Serena and I'm Randy's cousin.

I live in Venice and I am Italian.

Randy's, um, research has made me think

about it and made me more interested in it.

We go back to 1500 and to Venice to my town, so that's amazing.

I think when I was eight I did my first family tree.

I was always very interested in my own family.

All of my cousins ask me, "How are we related?"

And I tell them, "We are cousins."

You don't have to know more than this.

- [man] Exactly. - We are family.

Now, I don't know why, uh, it's not important,

but I do it about 15 hours a day.

- [Joey laughs] - Um, and the rest--

- [Randy] You sleep. - I'm resting, yeah.

[laughter]

Well, um, I wouldn't pass up

an opportunity to come to Europe.

[laughter]

Um, family is nice and so it's--

it's nice to know where I came from.

Not a lot of people can say that.

[man] And now we've got Randy himself.

30 seconds, why genealogy is important.

- Oh, this is gonna be hard. - For me, it's just

a way of-- of connecting.

I grew up in a family that felt very European,

so my family home had furniture and paintings

and things that looked like-- like this beautiful house.

And-- and I guess genealogy has allowed me

to enter that world and to meet people like you

and Marie-Theres and all of you here,

uh, who have that same sort of feel for that history

that-- that my family had and that all of us have.

So anyway, thank you all for being here

and sharing that with me.

The major point, I think, what Randy always

does all his life is bringing people together.

Every time we have a new person come over to our house,

like one of Dora's friends, Nathan's friends, my friends,

his friends, my mom's friends, he asks them, uh,

if he can do their genealogy

and then he sits on the couch with them

and goes through their entire family tree.

Well, it's selfish because I can't do it myself.

- [laughter] - I need the help

of everybody else to find the next clue.

[man] As he started posting questions about

my genealogy I've gotten like all of these strange

unsolicited emails from all these people that were like,

"Listen, you don't know me,

but I am your second cousin once removed."

Sometimes-- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

It just, you know, depends on-- on the family.

Oh, I need some space in the middle.

There we are. Four kilos. No, two. Four pounds.

Sorry, I got mixed up with this strange...

- Thank you. - ...non-metrical system.

Thank you for allowing us to be here

and making your home, our home for a night.

- [Marie-Theres] It's your home. - Very nice. Very nice.

- [laughs] - [Marie-Theres] Thank you.

[Randy] My mom was an only child.

My dad had two siblings and so we had very few cousins.

Five of them.

And even second cousins were sort of

non-existent in the family.

What we thought was a normal family.

But then you realize like there are some families

that stick around in the same place for a long

time where they have dozens and dozens of cousins.

Because of what happened in World War II,

we spread out all over the world and sometimes have lost contact.

So I think part of my genealogical quest

has been to reunite us with these extended family members.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday dear Joey ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

[cheering, applause]

[Joey] I turned 18 in Europe.

I felt like it was very fitting.

- It's the 18th birthday, so. - Exactly.

A very important birthday.

All the best, Joey.

I think if anybody can figure out what this is

and who it belonged to, it would be the two of you,

Marie-Theres and-- and Georg. So I'm giving it to you.

It must be 150 years old or more.

And it seems to be an album of visiting cards of some sort

and there's some-- even some genealogical ones.

Uh, so maybe you could look through.

[Georg] It looks a bit like-- like the [indistinct].

[Marie-Theres] Thank you so much.

[Randy] Yeah. So what's a [indistinct]?

[Georg] It's something that it says--

[conversation fades]

[soft classical music playing]

I guess from all the stories

you're telling me about the family,

I had this dream that I would start painting some pictures

of-- of the characters you're, like, telling me about.

And then this morning I spoke to Nick and I said to him,

you know, "What do you think if we started

painting these people, you know, and make a series of paintings

on-- on these characters that Randy is telling me about?

- It's our family." - Such a neat idea.

Like-- like how would you get the-- the faces?

How would you imagine them, though?

We don't have any photographs or we don't know

- what they look like. - I mean, yeah,

of course, we don't.

But, um, I think it would be interesting to like use

some faces from our family

would be like, uh, portraits of ghosts.

[Randy laughs] A little bit.

I always-- I think of these people just as names

or gravestones or documents.

I never really try to imagine what they look like.

Yeah, it becomes real, you know.

It becomes like something other people can visualize too.

[sentimental music playing]

It's number one.

[woman] '74 is-- Arnold Schoenberg born here.

And 1889 my grandma bought the house.

It's very important for me to be in this building

and to know that Schoenberg was born here

and to know about the period of time

when he was born, to know about this neighborhood,

because it can convey some feelings

even for-- for the work of painting.

[woman] Second district was a very poor district

and a lot of Jewish people were living here.

It was a not beautiful district.

The houses, uh, were looked poor.

[Serena] I'm a figurative painter

and I like painting expressions

and I think that portraits are what I really like to do,

to get a feeling of what the person means to me.

[Randy] Heinrich Schoenberg,

Arnold's brother and two above him is Artur,

that's his first cousin,

and he was married to Eveline Schoenberg,

but there's quite a lot of Schoenberg's and Schoenberger's

and they were all killed.

Heinrich was murdered in Salzburg

and Artur and Eveline, uh, in Theresienstadt.

Josef Felix Nachod and Robert Nachod were first cousins

of my grandfather,

Clara Franziska, and Josef Felix and Robert Nachod.

And uh, they were killed.

Josef Nachod and his wife Clara, uh, had a daughter, Edith,

who managed to be sent out but with a Kindertransport.

And I tracked her down just a few years ago,

shortly before she died.

And it was for-- she was very, very nice.

Her father tried to get out but couldn't.

He sent a letter to a man in Texas in English.

Really a tragic letter, uh, that we have.

Someone found me on the internet and--

and said they found this letter from him and, uh, it's--

we put it in the museum in Los Angeles because it's so--

so heart wrenching. He says, "Please help me.

I need to get out." And, of course, he didn't.

He was sent to Theresienstadt and, uh, then murdered.

[somber music playing]

[Randy] Barbara Kintaert, I met a number of years ago

'cause she was doing research on her husband's family.

And so she found me on the genealogy site

and then when I came to Vienna, she wanted to meet with me

and she's just a remarkable woman who decided to study

the history of her own building and neighborhood.

[Serena] Is this a Jewish neighborhood?

[Randy] It was.

[Barbara] When I moved in, in 1984, in this house number six,

there was one old lady who said, "Uh, what are you doing here

with all your bags and with all your, uh, boxes?"

And I said, "We are moving in."

And the old lady said... [speaking German]

She said that in 1984--

[Randy] You have to translate that for them.

Uh, it means finally the house is without Jews.

And I started researching this house where I live.

It's the same overall profile as Austria in a-- as a whole.

One-third of the people in our house

were deported and murdered.

One-third of the people in our house lost everything,

but they were able to get a visa to-- to immigrate abroad.

And one-third has an "unclear fate".

So then in 2005, we had this, um, memorial made.

You have to know the micro history of the place

where you live because it's a contaminated landscape.

You-- you cannot just walk through a nice looking street

that looks very elegant or whatever,

and not know the history of it.

My husband is Viennese, his father was half-Jewish.

And my father-in-law was the only survivor in Vienna.

We are a very, very small Vien--

family in Vienna because of the Holocaust.

I-- I consider it as a-- as a family carpet.

When you have a carpet, you have a carpet.

Um, it has threads like this and threads like this.

But if, uh, one part of the family is eradicated,

some threads are missing.

You have a big hole in the carpet.

And so through research, you can mend it somehow.

And our family carpet in Vienna is torn up, torn apart.

You can live on without knowing anything, of course.

And it's maybe easier, but it's not healthier.

So this is our key memorial.

It's 462 names of all the Jewish people in the whole street.

See, it goes to the end of the block.

And it's just a very small street.

It-- maybe it sounds strange,

but I think it makes the street healthier

to-- to be able to know the history of the street.

I think all the streets could do that.

Last summer, uh, uh, an-- an elderly lady with

heads-- headscarf and her daughter with no headscarf,

and the son-in-law and the small grandchild were passing by.

And the daughter and the son-in-law were able

to speak, uh, English.

And the young woman and her husband

asked me what it was.

So I explained it to them and they said,

"Oh, we are refugees too, and thank you for explaining."

And then they went away.

And then the old mother came back,

the one with the headscarf,

and she said, "It's so moving with the keys.

I completely feel with it."

- She-- she was from Syria. - Yeah.

And she was so moved.

- That was like-- - [Serena] Wonderful story.

Yes, that was nice.

[Georg] All the interior is from 1881.

And the fascinating thing is that this shop

was designed for selling fabric.

What they wanted was a renaissance room

'cause it was history.

Good fabric is something that is a mentality.

It's a thing you will have for lifetime.

Not something you will throw away

after three times of wearing.

It's something you will have for years.

And you can think of a birthday present, Randy,

for something for an 18th birthday I think

a nice fitting suit is a good-- good thing to do.

Happy birthday, Joey. You only turn 18 once.

- What do you think about this? - [Randy] Ah, that looks nice.

Yeah. I like this one. It suits my aura.

The burgundy one? That looks a little expensive.

- We'll take it. - [Randy laughs]

[Randy] Georg was working in the family business

and he discovered these old ledgers going back,

you know, a hundred, 150 years and saw all these names

that just didn't exist anymore in Vienna.

Like no one could answer like, what happened to these families?

So he decided to do research.

[Georg] There's so much cultural history here.

Actually, what-- what genealogy is about is, um,

that every history is made by people.

And, um, genealogy is the question how

these people who are dealing with are related to each other.

And it's always a question of,

now genealogy is also a question of biography.

So these two things that match, and I got interested because

I've got all the old books from-- from my company

from the 19th century, um, where people bought cloth and,

um, everyone who got one of these robes or,

um, there was, uh, the name written down.

And then there was a little piece of fabric glued in,

and it was written exactly what-- what was made.

And I found out that there was a huge layer in society,

which was absolutely the most important group

in Viennese society for the intellectual output

was completely destroyed in Second World War.

And I'm just trying to reconstruct

this layer of society.

And so genealogy is just a way to get an idea how

this world has been in those days.

There's a-- a quite old book from-- from 1912 and--

and the second volume was published

a few years later by Bernhard Wachstein.

And he was a very, very interesting, uh, figure

because he was the director of the Jewish library in Vienna.

And, um, he was probably the first

really Jewish genealogist who-- who did new methods.

So he went down to the cemeteries

and he transcribed all the inscriptions

and he-- he did lots of research in the libraries

and-- and he wrote these two absolutely tremendous books.

- And there you are. - Oh, wow.

I think for your-- for your purposes,

I think you should go to Prague and to do research there.

I think you'll find tremendous things.

[sentimental music playing]

[Randy] Julius Muller is like Wolf-Erich Eckstein

or Georg Gaugusch.

He's sort of my go-to guy in the Czech Republic.

[Julius] I like stories just not only about the data,

death, marriage, birth, but also about

the stories and about real people.

So I would say I was really attracted by providing data for

other people, but at the same time,

they provide me with their stories and their lives.

So it's more complex.

It's just regular profession. It's more than that for me.

This is where the wedding was officiated.

And in August 12th, 1845,

Josef Nachod Handelsmann married Karoline Jontof

and you can see in the books.

The witnesses was Gabriel Nachod, the father.

- His father, yeah. - And Israel Jontof.

[Randy] The Altneuschul, it's the oldest synagogue

in the world that's still continuously active.

I would say family reunion for me is

the highlights of the genealogy.

- [Randy] See that chair there? - [Joey] Mm-hmm.

That's the seat of the Maharal.

Of the chief rabbi who's our ancestor also.

[Julius] If you grew up in a socialist era,

the things of individual history are suppressed.

So sort of propaganda or ideology

that you are just part of something bigger.

After 1990, the whole society became more individualistic.

[Randy] And think about our family being in here

hundreds of years ago.

Pretty cool.

[Julius] So I started to work on a family tree and gradually

I realized that part of the family was Jewish.

I didn't know that before until I was 25.

So I started to go to the synagogue,

trying to learn Hebrew.

For me, genealogy at the very beginning was

more like an entrance through world of Judaism.

Still even, 70 years after the war,

people are struggling to find

a Jewish identity in different ways.

And those people are coming to me.

And I'm always honestly warning them

you will see probably things you would never expect to see

or learn about your own family.

[chanting in Hebrew] Hinei mah tov u-ma nayim.

You can find out that from 50 relatives, 45 are killed.

So they want to know and they want to open the chapter,

which is lost.

And I think it's great.

[Lenka] I would like to invite you in the National Archives.

On the tables, you can see all the documents which we were

able to collect about your relatives and ancestors.

The daughter of Jose Nachod and Karoline Jontof.

[Randy] So Josef, the son of Gabriel and Eva.

[Lenka] Yes. And mother Karoline, the daughter of

Jacob Jontof-Hutter and Franziska Zeimer.

[Randy] So they're members of the Altneuschul,

- that's where she was named. - [Lenka] Yes.

[Randy] Look at that.

How many generation you think are in there?

- Five? Four? More. - What do you think, Joey?

So we're walking through the family.

- What's this now? - Yes.

- Let's see. This is the birth. - Yes.

This is the birth record of Josef Nachod.

- Okay. - Yes.

With the father Gabriel and mother Eva.

Does it say what their profession was?

[Lenka in German] Hochzeitsbieter.

[Randy] Oh, yeah. Hochzeitsbieter.

So this one does-- When they died it says his profession

is a-- a marriage presenter.

- Like a wedding planner. - Yeah.

So he was a wedding planner, Gabriel Nachod.

And he must have planned his son's wedding too, right?

[laughs] If that was his--

Okay, so we're going backwards in time.

Joey, look at this one. So now we're at the marriage.

Yes. There is a marriage of Gabriel.

- 1801. Wow. - Yes.

And it has the house number, 85.

This is the census of the Jews in 1794.

It's a really important collection.

And so the interesting thing is Gabriel Nachod

is listed as a schulsinger, a cantor.

Remember, Pauline is Arnold Schoenberg's mother.

Josef is her father. Gabriel is his father.

And now it's says Gabriel is the son of Avigdor and Pessel.

Okay. So we're getting into sort of more Jewish names.

So this is the application for permission to get married.

So it's Avigdor Nachod, Moyses Nachod's son,

and then his bride, Pessel, Josef Bunzel's daughter.

This is the maybe Jewish census or always of Jews from,

uh, of, uh, living in Prague of 1729.

[Randy] Moyses Benet. So the-- Moyses, son of Benet Nachod.

His wife Hindele, and children

Simcha and Fig-- Avigdor.

[Randy] Figdor, yeah. Figdor, which is Avigdor,

the same thing. And her daughter Rossel.

[Lenka] There is a Benet Nachod.

[Randy] And it says his occupation.

- [Lenka] Yes. Juwelier. - A jeweler.

- Yeah. Gems. - Yeah. So it's your-- your

great-great-great-great-

great-great-great grandfather, Benet Nachod.

Yeah. So next time you tell me that I'm crazy,

I'll tell you that our family did it.

[Lenka] After the changes,

so many people came without family, without maybe memories.

So for us, it's nice when the people are

able to find some information about the family, and especially

for the Jewish people, because a lot, lot of them,

uh, couldn't-- can't find, uh, the roots of the family.

[Randy] My thinking is that the family

came up to Prague around 1560

because things changed in Venice.

The Venetians decide that they're going to burn

all of the Jewish books that they can find.

That's when this family of doctors,

astronomers and philosophers,

so they came up to Prague thinking it would be safe.

And then in 1564,

they had the same thing here in Prague.

They're trying to escape these periodic persecutions.

This is the first liber judeorum.

It's from the 1500s.

This is the actual book that they were using in 1579

to record transactions involving Jews.

And this one is in Czech, not German.

So at this time, the King of Bohemia is Czech.

And so they write all the records in Czech

and here on the lower left is the mother-in-law of

Salvator Chalfan, doctor, Jewish doctor.

So Salvator Chalfan, we believe is the same as

Abba Mari Chalfan, who is the son of Eliyahu Chalfan.

Salvator was this Christian name

that they would use with non-Jews,

for Abba Mari Chalfan, who's our oldest ancestor

who came here to Prague.

These are books that they kept all

of the transactions related to Jews because

the Jews were allowed to own their houses and-- and inherit.

Here it is. I found it.

So this is-- see here's Frumetl.

See it says her former husband.

And this is new husband.

And so maybe it's a transfer of the property

and it has references then to other pages in other books.

So in 1690, they're using this book

to record the mortgages and transactions.

So this is the Nachod family.

So Arnold Schoenberg's mom is Pauline Nachod.

- Yeah. - So this is her direct ancestor.

Pauline was born in Prague in 1848.

And her father's Joseph and his father's Gabriel.

And Gabriel's father is Avigdor.

And Avigdor's father is-- is Moyses

and Moyses' father is Benet

and Benet's mother is Frumetl.

[laughs] Okay. So it just goes up, up, up, up, up.

Okay. So that's our ancestor. And Frumetl also.

But this is such a useful document

because it has the whole family. Right? This is not online.

And maybe because when they scanned it,

they didn't have a big enough scanner and they're just shocked

that anybody wants to look at it.

That's why they're letting us touch them because

I'm the only person in 200 years

who wants to look at this, right?

[soft rock music playing]

[Randy] I think I was maybe

more surprised at how enjoyable it was for me

retracing some of the steps with my son.

Joey might have gained some appreciation of why

I do my research and why I'm so persistent in

tracking things down.

I think he might have seen some of the beauty that's involved.

♪

[Julius] This is only a fragment of the former cemetery

established about 1680 for the victims of a plague.

And then another wave of disease came about 1715.

Since 1787, Joseph II decided

all Jewish cemeteries should be outside of the town.

So that's why they decided to use that place again.

And they used it for another a hundred years.

And I think that I read somewhere,

there's about 30,000 graves altogether in this place.

1989 most of the cemetery was grabbed by the structure because

they were developing a broadcasting station

and they were also using it for interfering with

the broadcasting of a Radio Free Europe

and Voice of America, my father's favorites.

Because of that, you know, bloody tower,

we had to tune again and again and again to get the radio.

You can hardly see the yellow building is the two towers.

We all knew that the very last floor, there was a spies.

There was, you know,

counterespionage people listening to calls

that we are connecting, knowing nothing.

[Randy] Were a lot of graves lost when they put

- in the-- the tower? - [Julius] Yeah.

I think it's, yeah, say about 10% maximum is still left,

maybe even less than 10%.

[Randy] So 90% of the graves were removed

just to build that ugly postmodern--

Well, it's an industrial and brutal political act.

- Yes. - Yeah.

It's not primarily anti-Semitic, I would say.

It's an industrial and brutal political act.

- Right. - [Randy] Yeah.

So sad because it was just right-- right before

everything changed for the better.

So to build the tower, they had to remove headstones?

Yeah. But probably they destroyed all of those things.

They just transferred it somewhere.

I don't know what ritual they observed.

Probably they didn't care.

[Randy] I've heard sometimes they show up

as cobblestones in the street. I don't know.

[Julius] It's about the skeletons.

You know? What happened with the bodies?

What kind of respect they paid those remnants?

[Randy] I've never been able to

find any of the graves of my family here.

So Daniel Polakovic told me that he looked for

the Nachod graves and he couldn't

find the ones for, uh, Avigdor and Gabriel.

But he said-- he said they were around this area here

that's sort of empty next to this big giant thing and--

and that he found one member of the family.

So I'm gonna look for that member of the family.

And it has a triangle at the top and a line down the middle

because it's the wife and the husband together.

Her name is Ester Winternitz, but she's born Nachod and she's

the first cousin of Avigdor Daniel Nachod, our ancestor.

So do you see a triangle?

Ooh, there's one there. Look at that. Okay.

[Julius] You can really close your eyes and go straight

to it because those things happen all the time.

[laughs] I know that.

[Julius] I know what I'm talking about.

Wait a second. I think it's this-- I think it's this one.

It's hard to tell, but it looks like there's

this line just like in the picture and a crack.

- It's definitely this one. - [Julius] Yeah. Yeah.

Wait, okay. So-- so it should be right here.

It should say Josef Ausch-- her--

the neat thing about this is it references her ancestor.

I see it in the picture. It says Joseph Ausch SeGal.

So her-- her ancestor is that famous, the head

of the land Rosh Medina, Joseph Ausch, who died in 1685.

[Julius] But people still coming in here, you know,

paying homage to the significant people,

trying to find your ancestor's place,

which is also great mitzvah.

[sentimental music playing]

[Randy] Petr Wilheim is a cousin on

the [indistinct] side.

Our families were separated after World War II

and they really had no contact at all.

It wasn't until I was doing genealogy research

in the '80s and '90s that a cousin contacted us.

And through that cousin I found Petr.

And then we met for the first time at

a family reunion that we did in 1996.

So I'm so happy that I was able to find him and meet him.

And I think he enjoys it also having cousins, uh,

like all of these families like mine,

where everybody's strewn all over the world.

And so one of the nice things about

genealogy is bringing all these families together.

Now, every time I come here, [laughs] we-- we hang out

together and we visit, uh, visit the cemetery where

he-- he works and volunteers.

And, uh, we took about 45 years for

everybody to come back together.

But now we're good friends.

- [Petr] My cousin. - [Randy] And here we are.

Well, that's-- that's the grave.

- That's his father. - Yeah.

- [speaking foreign language] - His mother, Hana.

- Uncle. - His uncle, Pavel.

- Rosvalto. - That's the grandfather.

- [speaking German] - He was from Austria.

So where it says no date, right, has just a question

mark, an... [speaking German]

[Petr speaking German]

No one knows where they're--

they were murdered in which--

[words on screen]

[words on screen]

[Randy] It's a pilgrimage site, I think, for people.

And, um, there it is.

Franz Kafka, he died very young.

His best friend, Max Brod was also

a music journalist and wrote reviews of

our-- our grandfather's performances in Prague.

[Arnie] What was your favorite book out of, uh--

The Trial I really liked because it's really just

a nightmare about turning 30. [laughs]

The whole book.

He wakes up on his 30th birthday and by a year later he's dead.

So I always thought that that's really--

it's all just about his anxiety of turning 30.

[sentimental music playing]

Everybody, welcome to this amazing

cousin event here in Prague.

I'm so happy to be here.

This is my son, Joey, who's on this adventure with me.

We just came from Vienna and we're seeing

all sorts of amazing documents and graves and things.

We're tracing our family history back 500 years.

And on the way we're discovering a lot of our cousins,

the first I'm gonna say about Michaela, who's very special.

I went and-- and found you.

Since then, Michaela and I have been very close.

[soft music playing]

[Michaela] 30 years ago, my neighbor told me,

"You have an American cousin here in house."

"No, I have no cousin in America."

"Yes, he's sitting in our house."

I came home.

So I first time saw Randy it was--

it was very, very beautiful.

♪

My father died several years ago.

My brother died several years ago and, uh, ago.

And I was the only one knowing nobody here.

[Randy] Michaela took me immediately out

into the countryside.

[upbeat music playing]

I don't know anybody in Czech Republic.

Michaela's gonna show me around.

So we went to the countryside

and she said, "I wanna go hunting mushrooms."

[laughter] Now I had never done anything like that.

And-- and I thought, okay. Okay, we'll go for mushrooms.

So-- so we were walking through the forest

and I-- I saw a mushroom and I said,

"Michaela, Michaela, here's a mushroom."

And she says, "Ooh, that's strange.

Sure about that?"

Okay, we take it and put it in the basket.

[laughter] So-- so at the end,

she had all of these mushrooms that she wasn't sure about.

And I was, you know, I met her yesterday, right?

And she said, "Okay, I'll ask an expert."

And you-- you got out of the car and you went

and called this lady down and then talk, talk, talk.

And then you came back in the car

and said, "Yeah, I think it's okay."

Right? And so they went home and you made this delicious stew.

It smelled good, but I thought

I was probably going to die, right?

So that-- so I waited until the first bite

and I thought, "Okay, she didn't die immediately,

so maybe I should try it too."

And I-- and I ate and the food was delicious.

I-- I remember that like it was yesterday.

[laughs]

My name is Radmila Iblová.

And we, uh, discovered the really fantastic,

um, family tree thanks to Randy.

I didn't know about nobody of my family, um, roots.

And I remember the date when we wrote him.

"Hi, Randy, do you know anything about our family tree?"

And he answered immediately.

"You know that you have your very close relatives

in Milan and also in Haifa."

And we said, "No, we didn't know about that

because nobody knew that somebody survived the war

in the Czech Republic."

And we began the new life, thanks to Randy.

My mother, she is Renata Pavelková,

she was born in the partly Jewish family.

And unfortunately, she was as a seven years old child,

uh, in Terezín camp.

Luckily, she survived.

But unfortunately for a very long time,

she was not able to talk about this history.

It's an amazing, amazing privilege to meet someone

who was actually a witness to that event.

I just feel the need to find all of you.

And it makes me so happy to see all of you

sitting here today,

especially the little ones at the end there.

So thank you all for coming.

Thank you. And, uh, for allowing me to introduce,

Joey, my next generation

who may or may not be interested in genealogy.

We're--

- I'll leave an open mind. - [Randy] You're gonna have

- an open mind. Good. - Yeah.

- Open-minded. - [Randy] That's-- that's all

- that's required. - It's very nice

to meet all of you.

[laughter]

[soft music playing]

[sad music playing]

[archivist] The archive of the Jewish Museum in Prague

look after the records

of the individual Jewish communities

in Bohemia and Moravia and Silesia.

We have one simple and serious goal.

Protect the records and preserve them to the next generation.

Like a testimony.

Yeah, yeah.

So you have a bunch of things I think you found for my family.

Yeah. We have here, uh-- uh, a familianten book.

It was a quota, a limit

on the number of Jewish families.

So one person had to die before the next person

could get married.

And they kept track of these in giant books.

[archivist] There is the family of Gabriel Nachod.

[Randy] Right? So that's Nachod Gabriel

and that's his father of Avigdor

and his mother Pessel and has a date under that.

And then the next-- next column is his wife.

Ava, the daughter of Moises Zodex.

And-- and he gives sort of a number

when they were married in 1801.

Permission to-- to do marriage.

[man] It's like a eugenics program.

And if you look on this column here, it has-- has the children.

Has the sons. Uh, not the-- not the daughters.

They didn't list the daughters.

So first was Simon, who died.

And then there's Philipp and Josef,

who's our great-great-grandfather.

Can see there's some kind of announcements

to the marriage.

[Randy] He was allowed to get married

because his older brother had moved away.

He went to Vienna to study medicine

and then ended up in Hungary.

- Got it. - Where he was a doctor.

And so, uh, that's why our great-great-grandfather

Josef was allowed to get married.

Yeah. The Pinkas synagogue.

And it's-- it says the date there in 1845.

So that's our great-great grandparents' marriage contract.

And that their marriage is gonna be announced.

[archivist] When you wanted to-- to get married,

you have to pay some money to the state.

There is some kind of records,

some kind of documents that they pay 500 florins.

It's like the receipts.

Well, that's how the-- the government raised money

from the Jews by charging fees

every time they needed to do something.

So every-- every time you--

you got married or you opened a new business

or you built a house or sold something, right?

Just like today.

This is in-- in Hebrew or Yiddish.

Which-- which is it?

Daniel, you're-- Daniel.

[Randy] You're the expert at reading this.

Is it Hebrew or Yiddish?

What is it?

[Randy] 1756. Right?

It must be 17-- 'cause this is Avigdor.

This is the father of Gabriel

who we just saw the familianten.

This is a lawsuit between Avigdor Nachod

and his employer, a guy named Beer Schefteles.

It's session protocols of the beth din,

of the rabbinical court.

This is really amazing

how much detail you have of the day-to-day lives.

[Randy] This is our great great-great-great-grandfather.

This is an event that happened over 250 years ago

and here we are looking at it.

You feel like you almost know 'em a little bit, right?

[archivist] Perhaps you have heard about a great expulsion

of the Jews during the era of Maria Theresa.

[Randy] Look at that.

Avigdor and his whole family were expelled

from Prague in 1745.

And then they were allowed to return in 1748.

So the Pinkas synagogue kept a book recording the--

who owned the seat basically, right?

It was-- it was like a property record.

[Randy] So now we'll have an idea where he was

in the Pinkas synagogue where they were sitting.

So this is a tax book for Manes Nachod, right,

from 1685.

Benet Nachod and his father, Manes,

apparently they were frequent visitors to the Leipzig Fair

where people came from far and wide to trade things.

And you have a little book here too. What's that?

And when did he die? When does it say he died?

1586. Oh, my gosh.

And that-- so that grave is in the old cemetery?

Are you gonna show that? Will you show that to us?

[dramatic music playing]

[Randy] Yeah, it does.

Daniel's gonna show us, he says the oldest grave of--

of the Chalfan family here.

♪

The Nachod family is there?

[Daniel] The father of the family Manes.

So which one-- So that's Manes Nachod?

And that's Frumetl.

Frumetl, the wife of Manes Nachod,

daughter of Joseph Ausch.

[Randy] We saw lots of--

[Joey] You're saying he's rich because the grave is fancy?

I brought the Wachstein book with me.

So let's-- let's look at that.

I thought we might need this...

because there's so much back and forth

from-- from Vienna and Prague.

So let's look up Heschel and see what it says.

So Heschel--

Heschel ben-- Elia. See Chalfan.

So the name was-- was Chalfan.

It's a long time ago.

It is.

[Randy] Abba Mari, the son of Dr. Elia Chalfan

from 1586. Wow.

[soft music playing]

There aren't too many other places in Europe left

that have any Jewish character,

let alone something as moving as the Old Cemetery in Prague,

which is, you know, not only beautiful

to look at, but also the final resting place

of so many of my family members.

So you have to be grateful for what they have.

[upbeat music playing]

Going to Theresienstadt is difficult.

It's like a ghost town in a way,

and yet there's still people living there

because it was originally a city, it was a garrison town.

It's just bizarre being in a former Nazi concentration camp

and then seeing its function as an ordinary city.

When the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia

and they started sending trainloads of Jews

from all over Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany.

Some came from Holland, Denmark, there were well over

100,000 Jews, I think 133,000

who were sent here during World War II.

Wherever humans are, they're gonna make music

and they're gonna write and they're gonna paint.

You know, artists have to do this

wherever they are, no matter what the conditions.

Viktor Ullmann was a student of my grandfather,

Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna.

This is a poster from a concert that they had here

in Theresienstadt and it has all the composers listed.

People attended real concerts,

and even my grandfather's music was played here.

So sometime in July 1942, my great-grandfather, Siegmund,

was given a notice, told to show up

at the train station sent here.

It was one of the most crowded times in the ghetto.

It's hard to imagine it now, and it's sort of empty.

But in a town that was built for 3,000 to 5,000 people,

there were 50,000 Jewish prisoners.

So people were just piled on top of each other.

And then after two months, they started deporting people

to the east, to the extermination camps.

And, uh, my great-grandfather and-- and my great-grandmother's

sister were deported on the second--

second train to Treblinka where people

upon arrival, stripped of all their clothing

and put in gas chambers and killed.

He was murdered probably within hours of arrival.

He knew that my mom existed, but he never got to meet her.

For me, though, it's not how I imagined Theresienstadt.

I imagined it as my great-grandfather

experienced it.

This overcrowding and the smell and the hunger

and sickness, that's all absent when I go there.

And there's just sort of nothing to bring it back.

♪

We're gonna go to one of these small towns called Ustek,

where the Ausch family, some of our ancestors live.

Ausch is the-- I guess the German name for Ustek .

[Achab] Matzevos are very poetical

for the man who knows Hebrew.

And when you are interesting in the Hebrew

and in the text written on the tombstones,

you must do it the rest of your life.

It is poetry, it is mystery.

I knew that's my task. I do it 20 years without money.

I am going on the cemeteries, make pics and rewriting

of the epitaphs, and translating it.

[man] The main part of our work, uh,

are the abandoned cemeteries

in the border area of Czech Republic.

The first was the restoration.

And when the cemetery was able to-- to be documented,

we can start to making the map

and put number to each gravestone.

I have it in-- in our papers because,

uh, now is not very well, uh, light

to read this, uh, very properly.

Yeah, it's very hard to read.

Rosh Medina is here on the second line.

Rosh Medina.

[Randy] Medina, okay. So that's--

that's what you had here.

Every time he's mentioned on his grave

and on all the other graves

and on the Torah curtains they say,

Rosh Medina, which means the 'head of the land.'

So what does that mean head of the land?

When we went to the archives, we have these statutes

that they made for the Jews

outside of Prague for the Landesjudenschaft,

it's called for the Country Jews.

And he is the first signatory of the statutes in 1659.

So that's why I think he's known as the head of the land

because he was the leader of the country Jews in Bohemia.

[Joey] Interesting, right?

Here.

We are only a grass.

We are going away when the wind blows.

So this is the reason why we put between this,

uh, and the stone.

And this stone. A bit of the nature.

As the Talmud teach, you will never finish your work,

but be sure without your work

wouldn't be finished the universe.

♪

[Randy] So what is this honey-- honey liqueur,

honey brandy, something like that?

[man] Something like that.

[Randy] Okay. And thank you to Achab for finding him.

Otherwise I never would've found him.

So, L'Chaim.

[all] L'Chaim.

[Randy] Not bad.

350 years ago, that was our family living here.

And now, here we are toasting them.

Pretty fun.

♪

[Randy] When I first came here, I don't know if--

if you remember, I think the-- the person who told me

that you-- your family was here or your father was here,

was-- was our cousin Mischa in Santa Barbara.

In the '70s-- '70s or--

And he visited you in the '70s, right?

- Yeah. - [Randy] Yeah.

But, uh, Mischa, I-- I just got news today

actually that he died.

- He died today this morning. - [gasps] No!

Yeah, this morning. I'm sorry.

- This morning. - [Randy] I'm sorry. Yeah.

- I just got-- I just got the-- - He was 100.

[Randy] He was 100 years old.

Um, and I saw him--

I can remember in Santa Barbara, it was so--

such a nice small house with a very nice view.

- [Randy] Yeah. - On the Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara. It was beautiful.

And they were so nice to me.

I went with him to the shoemaker with--

with his shoe.

It was, uh, in front of the mission

- there in Santa Barbara. - Yeah. [laughs]

Yeah. And it was beautiful.

He's the reason I found you because he told me

we have a cousin in Prague and that's why I looked you up.

- [Michaela] Yeah. - Very sad. Very sad.

But he brought us together.

[laughs]

[somber music playing]

[soft music playing]

The Pinkas synagogue was the family synagogue

of the Nachods back in the 17th century.

So they had their seats here and they donated

a big Torah curtain and also a Torah mantle

to cover the Torah.

They were its prominent members.

Those would all be our cousins and the Jontof family there.

So this is supposedly the robe

and flag of Shlomo Molcho, who was a Spanish Jew

who fled from Spain and then became sort of a preacher,

uh, talking about the Messiah coming.

And he tried to form an army to take over Palestine.

I think our family probably brought them up to Prague

from Italy because Shlomo Molcho was down in--

in Italy and our family was involved with him.

You could wear that to the Met Gala.

Yeah. [laughs]

I don't think I wanna wear it.

Uh, I don't want to end up like Shlomo Molcho.

He was burned at the stake after all.

You think when they had the ghetto here 200 years ago,

they had, what is it called?

Nut Glida?

Um, I'm gonna guess not.

Probably not.

But you never know.

Ooh, it's s dripping.

It was good. It was pretty good.

I like the pastry.

[Randy] Gonna ruin your dinner.

This can be my dinner.

I don't think I care.

We gotta go back to Vienna

to find those Chalfan graves that Wachstein found

and see where that takes us.

And Vienna's good. We know people there.

[upbeat music playing]

[Randy] Well, the archivists for the city

have brought the archives for the entire city here to--

to this building they call the Gasometer.

Uh, it's an old natural gas storage facility.

Every document is a clue. Right?

It's like, you know, we're going on a treasure hunt

and who knows what we're gonna find?

The birth should have the person's name

and the date that they were born

and the parents' names.

But there's always a chance you're

gonna find something you didn't know was there.

The archivist got me all the books.

So I get to show you all these neat things.

Oh, I love this stuff.

- Okay. - [Joey] You're weird.

[Randy] I am weird. I know.

You see the date there? 1632.

So this is the property book, the Grundbuch.

So, it is like a property register

of the Jews in Vienna in 1632.

This is one of the only records we have

of our ancestor Heschel, Elias, Jewish doctor.

So he's Heschel, the son of Elias, the Jewish doctor.

So Elias is the one that got permission from Rudolf II

to move from Prague to Vienna in 1597, I think.

And so he's here already at 1600.

And this is his son, Herschel or Heschel.

Uh, and it says where he lived in 1632.

So there's the plan.

The plan means map of the-- of the Jewish town,

actually right where the Jewish quarter was,

many centuries later when Arnold Schoenberg

was born in 1874, it's right around this area.

Uh, but also his ancestors were living here in the 1630s.

Well, like why is a house in the place it is?

Why is this street like it is?

Well, this street is like it is today

because of how it was built 400 years ago, 500 years ago.

So, everything new is really part of something

old at the same time.

It's also a section of Vienna that's near the train station.

It's where immigrants come in. Right?

So back then, the Jews were sort of recent immigrants to Vienna.

And today you'll have people coming from Ukraine.

So the recent refugees and immigrants

into Vienna also live in this area.

So, it's-- it's had that history for a long, long time.

So I already have American, Austrian,

and German citizenship, and I'm applying for Czech.

That's also I think a way of-- of reclaiming

some of the history that we had, um, here.

If we left a property or painting there,

you'd want it back.

Uh, so they left their citizenship behind

also when they fled.

So if I can recover a little bit of the things

that my grandparents and great-grandparents had,

it makes me feel good.

So, that's part of it.

Thanks to the book by Bernhard Wachstein,

I thought that the graves that he had recorded

for the Chalfan family were in the Seegasse Cemetery,

the really old Jewish cemetery in Vienna.

So we were there looking for those graves

and not finding them or anything close to them.

When Johannes Reiss came in and told us

that we should be looking actually at the fourth gate

of the central cemetery, where--

where a fragment of it had been moved.

The stones were buried here.

Oh, they were buried here in '41.

[Wolf-Erich Eckstein] The Seegasse,

like all Jewish cemeteries,

were taken over by the Nazi.

And so the Jewish community decided to bring

some head zones away and cover them with Earth.

And these were found by Mr. Schreiber,

former Stone Mason.

[Randy] Arnie, do you see it has like a little--

- little, uh-- - [Arnie] Should be--

Like looks like a shield almost.

Like this shape.

I thought-- was it supposed to be on one of these?

Maybe they moved it.

I have a picture. It looks like this.

See, it has like a shield with a point on the bottom.

Is it over there?

I think that's him.

It looks like. Yeah. So it's a fragment.

Yeah, there's a dirty trick.

Take chalk...

and go over.

[Randy] Oh, wow. [laughs]

Elia. Elia Ben MHRR.

- Abba. - Abba.

[Randy] Oh, that's it. That's it.

Should I take the rest to make it really sure?

[Randy] This is the son of Abba Mari Chalfan

who came from Venice to Prague to be here

in Vienna and find this grave

from an ancestor who died 400 years ago.

Right? And here we're standing right-- right next to it.

Um, it's just an incredible feeling.

It's why-- this is why I do genealogy.

- Thank you. - [Wolf-Erich Eckstein] Yeah.

Amazing stone too.

And he was such an interesting person we're finding out.

There's a list of the Jews in Vienna in 1600

and there are only 71 Jews in-- in the whole city.

- Amazing. - [Arnie] Yeah. We really need

to find the rest of it.

[Randy] Well, Arnie, that's your job to find the rest of it.

They look like recent breaks.

It must have been broken during the Nazi period

when they were moving things and had to bury it.

Somehow it-- it's almost fitting that it's broken.

And this is the oldest grave of my family in Vienna.

We expected it in one cemetery.

And there it is, the fragment lying in a different cemetery.

That's not-- that's not normally how it goes.

[Randy] Eisenstadt is the main residents

of the Esterházys who were type of prince.

And they owned a lot of land on the border,

basically, of what's now Austria and Hungary.

Uh, that's called the Burgenland.

After 1670, when Jews were expelled from Vienna

and Austria, they uh, found refuge in the Burgenland.

[man] The Jews were so-called protected Jews

by Esterházys princes, Schutzjuden.

It means they had to pay for their residence permission,

but they had the protection of the Esterházy.

[Randy] A lot of Jews went there, including one family

with the name Austerlitz that we descend from.

They were in Vienna in 1670, but they were kicked out.

And so a big group went to Eisenstadt.

There is this remarkable Jewish museum

that my friend Johannes Reiss has put together.

It's small, but it's very comprehensive.

Oh, this is-- this is the town.

This is Eisenstadt here.

Johannes Reiss is an expert on reading Hebrew tombstones.

And his partner, Traude,

is a genealogist and a very good friend.

[Johannes] Towards the end of October 1992,

a neo-Nazi boy wrote

Nazi symbols on 88 gravestones on the Jewish cemetery.

I recognized that nobody knows the names of the people

who are buried there, neither do know

what is written in those inscriptions.

It inspired me to work on the Hebrew inscriptions. Yes.

This stone is our eighth great-grandparents,

a husband and wife who died the same year in 1724.

Ruchana Austerlitz, she died in February

1724 and Salman Austerlitz, he died in November 1724.

The symbol for the Levites families.

[Randy] Also 'cause they washed the-- the hands--

Because they washed the hands for the kohanim,

the priest in the temple.

Solomon.

[Joey] Daddy, what's gonna be on your tombstone?

It's up to you. I'm dead. So, you know.

[Johannes] Every inscription, each inscription of each stone

is published online, and the QR codes on the stone

guides to this specific and permanent URL.

Yeah. I don't think there's any other cemetery

in the world that is done like this.

It's only thanks to all the work that Johannes did it.

So should we try to find their-- their parents?

They-- they-- are they around here?

Yes. The parents are two or three rows behind.

[Johannes] We feel responsible

for the descendants of the truth,

which were living here in the Jewish communities.

And the cemeteries have buried their grandparents,

their great-grandparents.

In Jewish history, tradition is the important point.

And tradition doesn't end one generation behind us.

This one is Moses.

Elia Gelles.

- Gelles. - This is Tzvi Hirsch.

- This is the father. - [Randy] Father and son.

So that's our-- our 10th great-grand--

my 10th great-grandfather,

your 11th great-grandfather, Joey.

Right-- right here. And you've died when?

- In 16-- - [Johannes] 1686.

This is the father.

And next to this stone is the mother, Levia Austerlitz.

[Randy] Oh, there-- so there's Levia.

She died in 1695.

So yeah. So she's in exile from Vienna.

- [Johannes] Yeah. - With-- with her-- her husband

is here and-- and she's there.

[Johannes] Yeah.

The Jewish history is always a history of immigration.

[Traude] They left their homes without knowing

where they are going and what they will expect

in their new home.

That's really moving to me.

More or less the same like today.

People left-- leave their homes

and don't know what-- what will happen tomorrow.

Johannes and me, we-- we are lucky enough to have an--

an apartment and we said, 'let's take one family to us.'

And the next day we picked up a family,

grandmother, mother, a 12-year-old boy,

and a little dog.

They are from-- from Ukraine.

And I hope to stay in Austria

because it's unbelievable that they have to leave.

It's not a life.

[Randy] Forchtenstein,

it's this really old medieval castle

high up on a hill looks like Hotel Transylvania

but it's filled with all the records of the Esterházys.

They ran all of their domain, all of their towns,

like a business.

A lot of researchers are interested

in what's in Forchtenstein.

These records that the Esterházy family kept,

which will record all the taxes and things

that they charged Jews for will go further back.

So that's sort of exciting for genealogy.

And they may have information for me on the Austerlitz family.

And how did you find them? Because it's not indexed, right?

This is a conscription, just like a census, Joey.

So it's-- it's basically a word for a census.

So they-- they keep track of all the people living in the area.

Not everything is indexed, but we-- we have

a-- a special structure of the-- of the whole, uh, archive here.

You have seen this-- this, uh, this, uh,

small houses in Eisenstadt today.

And here you see how many people,

how many persons live in every single house.

[Randy] It's documents like this that really help

put the puzzle pieces together.

And how far back do these go? How many years?

[archivist] Goes back to the beginning

of the 18th century.

So here, for example, this is Herschel Austerlitz,

and has his kids and everything.

And there's a note on the side says,

"He is the son of Aaron Austerlitz."

Right. So here you have even three generations of Austerlitz.

These are the first documents we already have scanned for you.

[Randy] Wow. Well, I know a lot of people who are researching

the communities in the Burgenland,

can share it with the people who are interested in--

in researching this, um, this area.

So that's very valuable. Thank you so much.

- You're welcome. - That's really great.

[upbeat music playing]

This is part of the Sebastian Tengnagel collection.

Tengnagel was the imperial librarian at the beginning

of the-- of the 17th century here in Vienna.

And he was a prominent orientalist and he collected,

um, a good numbers of, uh, Hebrew manuscripts.

[Randy] Many of them, they think came from the library

of our family when they came here to Vienna.

This is Italian and it is, uh, it's not easy to understand,

but this is from, uh, your ancestor.

Quest Libro something.

Elia Alphan. A-L-P-H-A-N at the end. So Elia Alphan.

So this book belonged to Elia Alphan

and he died 400 years ago.

And here we are in front of one of his books

that was owned and has essays by his grandfather

and great-grandfather who were alive in the 1400.

You see where it says "Kalonymos ben David Kalonymos."

And he probably gave it

to his son-in-law Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan.

I mean, it's hard to believe that something

this old was owned and created

by someone that I share blood with.

[Randy] Uh, so there's a number of different works

that are all bound together here by Aristotle and Maimonides.

One of our ancestors in the 15th century, in the 1400s,

was writing out little notes, uh, on all of these things.

I just think it's amazing that Arnold Schoenberg's mother,

Pauline Nachod comes from Prague and her family

goes all the way back into the 1600s.

And then she has a grandmother

that is named Chalfan and her family came from Vienna.

So, and is a descendant of Dr. Elia Chalfan.

So we're-- we're absolutely a descendant of this Dr. Chalfan

and of the ancestors mentioned in this book,

his grandfather, Rabbi Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan

in Venice, and Kalonymos Ben David Kalonymos.

These are all our ancestors that we've been able to establish.

But it's amazing to find something

that they owned, right? After how many years this is?

He died in, 1630 I think. So he died 400 years ago.

And here we are in front of one of his books.

[Dr. Petrolini] You should talk with Fabrizio Lelli in Florence

because he specialized on the movement

of manuscripts from the southern Italy

to Venice and to Vienna to Northern Europe.

[man] Did you have an eye on that particular note

in the appendix of the book?

[Randy] Bernhard Wachstein says, "And I was in the cemetery

in Venice, and there's this grave of Fioretta there,

the wife of Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan."

And that was the first clue.

Fioretta's would be the oldest known gravestone

that we found from our family.

That's why I came to Europe.

So we're hoping when we get to Venice

that that grave is still there.

It was there a hundred years ago,

so I hope it's still there today.

[upbeat music playing]

[Randy] Chiara told us that a scholar in Florence

knew more about Fioretta's husband,

Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan.

So we're going there first to find out more

about their family and how they live.

It really is a surprise when you come across something

that still exists, that they are still traces

of these people that you've never heard of.

That their life is why you exist.

Without them, you're not here.

And no one has remembered them until you've dug them up again

and learned something about them.

[Prof. Lelli] It's something really unbelievable.

This parchment, which has been recently defined,

the magnificent parchment.

So you will see why.

I think, uh, we-- we need someone to assist us

for opening it and unfolding it.

[Randy] Wow. Amazing.

That's 500 years old.

Wanna look closer?

Wow.

Joey, you wanna come around?

Here, come around me on this side.

It's better.

Better view. You see the dragon?

- There's a dragon there. - There's a dragon there.

He's riding it.

[Prof. Lelli] This is a-- an incredibly interesting

artifact dating to 1533.

This was a joint venture, so to say,

of Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan,

your ancestor and Abraham Sarfati.

The drawing of the parchment took place

at a specific moment that followed the execution

by burning and stake of a very singular person.

His name was Shlomo Molcho, uh, an alleged messiah.

So this is a sort of, uh, map.

Hmm? A-- A drawing of the divine world

and what the distinction between a lower level

of existence and an upper level of existence.

[Randy] Do you think Chalfan believed

that Shlomo Molcho was the Messiah?

I incline to think so because otherwise,

they wouldn't have realized such a beautiful artifact.

For many other Jews, this was just a fake, was just a cheater.

Someone who was just imagining, he was pretending.

I must tell you something, Randy,

that when you contacted me the first time,

I would hardly believe

that you were really the descendant of my hero,

Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan.

And the idea of being able to show you

his artifacts is just, uh, blowing me away.

I don't know what to say, but I'm just blown away.

[soft music playing]

[Prof. Lelli] The Chalfan family came from France

and to northern Italy like many other French families.

And they moved eastward to Venetian area

and at some point they moved to Southern Italy

because we find them in Naples.

Eliyahu Menachem lost his father at a relatively young age.

And 1526, uh, his father-in-law,

Kalonymos Ben David Kalonymos, gave him a big part

of the library belonging to his own family.

And, uh, we have an inventory, a complete list of this library.

They were the first generations of Jews living

in the gate of Venice because they--

when Chalfan started living in Venice,

so the gate has just been opened.

[Randy] Every genealogist just dreams

of taking the family back further and further and further.

That was my dream as a little kid.

And now here we are at the 1500s and into the 1400s.

And, of course, I'd love if we could get back even further.

[Prof. Lelli] I try to reconstruct

the history of the person or family.

[Randy] So it really expands what I thought we knew

about Jews in the olden days,

but I thought they're just living

in their little communities alone.

But instead, they're engaging with kings

and popes and emperors.

Henry VIII, he wanted to annul his marriage

to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

He went to all these rabbis and asked

for opinions that the marriage was invalid.

Some rabbis supported the Pope against Henry VII.

Chalfan and Kalonymos supported Henry VIII against the Pope.

[Prof. Lelli] The Jewish scholars in those days

were at the same time alchemists

or astrologers or medical doctors.

But at the same time, they could,

uh, discuss the Kabbalistic text.

I don't even know-- and Joey, I'm sure you don't know,

like what-- what is Kabbalah?

Where does it come from?

You know what Kabbalah means in Hebrew.

Kabbalah means something that is received.

The word had a sort of a very deep meaning

relating to the handing down of a tradition

from generation to generation.

- Like received wisdom, right? - [Prof. Lelli] Exactly.

At some point, you have the--

the idea that there's something hidden

that accompanies these rabbinic traditions.

And so this is the Kabbalah that was considered

the holiest in the Middle Ages.

And that finally, eventually,

became what we today call Kabbalah.

Our hero, Eliyahu Menachem Chalfan,

this is another very interesting scholar

who worked in this environment.

It's a very interesting and complicated story.

[upbeat jazz music]

[Serena] I was born in Venice.

I'm a true Giudeccina.

When I was a little girl,

Giudecca used to be a part of Venice

where only fishermen lived, and also factory workers.

And now it's become like the rest of Venice.

I think we lost control.

The whole city is bound to become

like a tourist attraction place

and you lose a feeling of real life.

Giudecca still has a lot of people who are Venetians.

You know everyone. People help each other.

There's a lot of solidarity in the island.

So you haven't been here before?

Nope.

[Randy] You know, I was here like 30 years ago, I guess.

[woman] Hi.

- Hi! So nice to see-- - [Randy] Hi.

Hi, Joey.

[Joey] Hi.

So this is Nick.

[Randy] Hey, Nick.

My husband. Randy. Joey.

- Nice to meet you. - Yeah, come in.

- Finally. - [Serena] I think Joey coming

into this trip and joining

is just the best thing that could happen.

It's wonderful that Randy is handing him down history

and his own legacy.

I started imagining these people that Randy

was giving me information about,

just trying out different expressions,

just to work things out

before I would start with the paintings.

When you look at a painting,

you can feel that somebody has actually made it

with their hands.

We're showing you this new painting Nick did.

So it's a surprise. There it is.

- Wow. - [Nuria] My father.

Oh, wow.

[Randy] Which dog is that?

[Nuria] That was Ronnie.

[Serena] Ronnie.

[Nuria] Ronnie was a beautiful Irish setter.

[Serena] Nick wanted to have this painting

ready for your 90th.

Oh, thank you, Nick.

That's lovely. I really--

Thank you so much.

Really.

And I really like it. It's very good.

[soft music playing]

It's always interesting to know where you come from.

Randy is very serious about it.

But that doesn't mean that he's not very active

right now in the world we live in.

And that's very important that I know

that he applies these things that he knows

knowing who he is and what he wants to be.

And we didn't expect to have wars

like this now again.

And it's very disturbing.

And these are things we were not used to.

Art and music can help with that

because usually there's a great sensitivity of mind,

of people who create art.

You're helping people to believe in the future.

[Serena] Now I think painting has a lot to do with history.

It really makes you feel and makes you think about,

you know, what these people have been through.

Having to leave one place.

The difficulties, it just never ends.

Life can be really tough on some people,

like our ancestors.

Going out to the cemetery you have a chance

to sort of contemplate what that must have been like

for people 500 years ago to go out over the lagoon,

rowing against the current

out to this pretty far off island, Toledo.

And it's difficult enough when you have

a loved one who dies.

And in Jewish tradition, you're supposed to bury

the person right away, like the next day.

So she was alive and then the next day

they had to go in a boat and row for hours

out to this far-off cemetery

because that's the only place

they allowed Jews to bury people.

[sentimental music playing]

We're gonna finally find Fioretta. Okay?

I hope. I hope we find her.

And Wachstein's book that said, "In the old cemetery

in Venice on the Lido, there's this grave of Fioretta"

but that was a hundred years ago.

Is it still there? Is it overgrown?

Was it moved? Is it lost? Is it still legible?

We just didn't know.

Okay, here we are.

Let's see if we can cross the street

without getting killed.

Yep. Looks good.

[indistinct chatter]

[Serena] Oh, it looks good.

- Wow. - [Randy] We wouldn't have been

able to get into that cemetery without-- without Aldo.

Oh. Oh, there he is. Oh, my gosh.

[Aldo] I superintended over the cemetery for everything.

[Serena] Ciao, Aldo!

[Aldo] Funerals, maintenance,

restoration of tombstones.

I am a volunteer.

I was born August the 28th, 1930.

During the war, of course, we were hidden.

Many Venetian Jews saved their lives

because our Catholic friends.

And that's what happened to us.

Wow. Thank you, Aldo.

- Amazing. - Wow.

[speaking Italian]

This with a certain pride, with a certain emphasis,

the ancient Jewish cemetery of Venice.

Just what is left of it, because it was a wide, wide area.

And those times it was the most

out-of-the-way place you could imagine.

They didn't want that us as neighbors not even as dead.

It's such a long, long story.

636 years of the cemetery.

Nowadays, this year, I think just three visits.

- [Randy] Visit? - [Aldo] You're the fourth.

[laughs]

[Randy] Okay, so we're looking for a grave

that looks like this with a triangle.

- [Serena] Like this one here. - [Randy] I think so. Yeah.

But-- but--

[sentimental music playing]

[Joey] Daddy come. I think I found it.

[Randy] You're kidding. Why? What'd you find?

[Joey] Serena, come.

It says "Halfon" and it says "Fioret."

[Randy] Which one?

- [Joey] This one. - [Randy] Oh my God.

So where do you find it?

- Where does it say it? - Fioret.

With "et".

- "Et". - Fioret. Okay.

[Joey] And Halfon.

Halfon down there.

- So let me see. - Halfon?

- [Randy] Fioret. - Yeah.

- [Serena] Wow. - [Aldo] Eliyahu Halfon.

[speaking Italian]

...Eliyahu Halfon.

[Randy] Eliyahu--

[Serena] That's the husband, he's saying.

- Halfon. You're right. - Yeah. Yeah.

- That's it. - Wow.

[Randy] That's it. I can't believe it.

Amazing, Randy.

It's "Fioret éshet the wife of

haRofe... MHRR Eliyahu Halfon.

This is Fioretta.

- [Serena] Can you imagine? - [Randy] Joey,

- you're the greatest! - [Joey] Yeah.

[Serena] Yeah. Wow, Joey. Well done, Joey.

[Randy] Basically, Joey is the one that really found it.

I guess his Hebrew school training was enough

for him to read out one of the names,

and so I looked over it and wow, sure enough, there she was.

Fioretta Chalfan. That's our ancestor.

[Serena] Let's put a stone on it.

[sentimental music playing]

[Randy] When you finally find it,

and then you're standing there and you realize 500 years ago,

her family, my family, our family,

was standing there also, right at--

at her graveside when she was buried.

You can see that he was pretty happy to have accomplished that.

I know he was sort of reluctant sometimes

to go along on this trip and we're in archives

and underground, looking at old records

that he can't read because it's in different language

with different script.

But then when he's actually able to accomplish something,

part of this research, part of this journey,

I think that must have been a really important thing for him.

It's that time of life when you start thinking about,

okay, who am I gonna be and what am I gonna do

and how am I going to do it?

And so he was able to explore that,

I think, while we were on this trip.

He gets to write the rest of his story.

[sentimental music playing]

[Joey] It was definitely a bonding trip.

I will always remember it.

[Randy] Serena did such a great job

with all the paintings, but you could tell she really

identified, I think with Fioretta,

you know, this sort of last matriarch of the family.

And she's from Venice, she's born in Venice,

she still lives in Venice.

There's hardly anybody who can say that.

And to have this ancestor on her mother's side,

which she never expected to find,

I think really connected with her.

She had this artistic way of responding to it,

of imagining what Fioretta might have looked like.

You can see a little bit of Serena

in the painting, which I really like.

[Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz] We're obsessed with memory,

but we're essentially missing so many generations

because of these atrocities that happened in Europe.

So there's really no one left to remember them.

And as a genealogist, you can at least get a little bit

of that back by recording their names

and some of their history.

[Joey] I think he wants to feel reconnected

with the family he lost in Europe.

That he wants to be connected to where his family used to be.

And even if I never will meet them,

it's nice to know that they were there.

I can feel where he's coming from.

[Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz] The Jewish story

is a story of perseverance.

Generation after generation,

even though we carry with us all of that darkness,

we have to remember because memory is a value.

This is an important part of what it means to actually

be part of a greater story than just ourselves.

[Serena] It's been amazing to be able to spend time

with them and confront this subject.

It was like magic because it was this circle

that from Venice, they go to Prague, to Vienna,

to Los Angeles, and then back to Venice again.

[Randy] I've also been interested now

in looking back further after Fioretta,

back down to Southern Italy where it's possible

that there are other family members we can learn about.

[Michaela] I'm pretty sure that after this research

with Fioretta, he will find another person

in the family, that he want to dig up.

He'll search and do the research the rest of his life.

He will not stop. It's not only a hobby.

You find people, you find friends,

you learn everything new.

I feel how I'm smiling when I think about it.

♪

[upbeat jazz music]

♪

[sentimental music]

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

♪