Who Do You Think You Are? Episode 1.03 Lisa Kudrow

Lisa Kudrow's roots date back to the Holocaust, which means her family connections, like many other Eastern European Jews, have been lost. Her father, Lee, has been trying to solve one of their family's mysteries for almost 60 years. What happened to their family during World War II--and what became of a long-lost cousin who survived it? Lisa is on a mission to find out. Her father grew up impoverished in New York and then worked his way up to become a doctor. Lisa believes by trying to find out what happened to her great-grandmother and distant cousin she can find the answers her father has been searching for--as well as find some of her own.

Lisa's grandmother, Gertrude, immigrated to America in 1921 for a better life. It is her family's history that Lisa and her father want to research more deeply. Lisa remembers how Gertrude spoke about her mother (Lisa's great-grandmother) and how Hitler stabbed her in the back with a knife. Lee, Lisa's father, tells Lisa that he heard a story from a cousin, Yuri Barudin, back in 1947 or 1948. Yuri Barudin just came off of a Polish ship called the Batory when he visited Lee's family in New York, Lee only being a young boy at the time. Yuri recounted his experience when the Germans came to the Jewish village of Ilya which was located outside the city limits of Minsk, Belarus. Lee remembers Yuri's tale of seeing Jewish families shot down by the Germans from a wooded area; including Lisa's great-grandmother. Lisa knows this story has always haunted her father and is determined to find out more about her great-grandmother and Yuri, especially since Lee was told Yuri died long ago.

Lisa knows that Grandma Gertrude's mother was Meri Mordejovich. Meri, along with other family members, were murdered during the Holocaust. Lisa travels from Los Angeles to Minsk, Belarus. Here she meets with Tamara Vershitskaya, a researcher of Jewish history. Lisa's worried that there will be no records, but learns that before World War II the village of Ilya had strong Jewish roots going back hundreds of years. This was drastically changed by the war all across Eastern Europe. According to Tamara, only five percent of the Jewish population were left alive after the Holocaust--10 percent at the most.

Lisa visits the Zonal State Archives in Molodechno with Tamara to see if they can find out what happened to Lisa's great-grandmother, Meri. Natalia Ivanova, director of the Zonal State Archives informs Lisa that documents taken from Moscow have a list of people who were killed during the Holocaust--including those who were killed, harmed and torched during Ilya, Meri's home village. Lisa searches through these documents and finds her great-grandmother's name--which isn't joyful news. Here, Lisa learns that Meri was killed and burned for being Jewish. It's worse than what Lisa imagined.

Lisa heads to the village of Ilya to search for answers about her father's distant cousin, Yuri. Lisa visits where her Grandmother Gertrude grew up. It's exactly what she pictured. However, Gertrude was able to escape the murders in the village. For Lisa, the gravity of knowing that the other people in the village were unable to escape the Nazis weighs heavily on her conscience. She also imagines how hard it must have been for Yuri to see his family members killed right in front of him.

Lisa and Tamara visit a villager, Maria, who lived during the massacre in Ilya. After showing Maria pictures, Lisa learns that she knew Gertrude--they actually went to school together and they were like family. Maria retells the story of when the Germans came to town and recounts the haunting tale of what they did to the Jewish families: looting their homes and burning down their houses. According to Maria, some Jews escaped to the forest and others were collected by the Germans. Maria remembers trying to hide a small girl under her bed, but terrifyingly the girl was found by the Germans and thrown into a fire. Lisa feels the sadness of the history surrounding her as she stands in her Grandmother Gertrude's yard.

In 1941, two years after Hitler's invasion of Poland, Nazi murder squads occupied towns like Ilya and created ghettos for Jews all over Eastern Europe. It was then that the Nazis exterminated the Jewish people in a systematic way, called "actions." Lisa visits an old market square in Ilya and reads an English-translated document about the events that took place there. It was called "the selection," where the Nazis used an ice storage unit in the ground as a mass burial unit for 900 Jewish men, women, children and babies from Ilya. All the Jews that were selected to be killed were ordered to remove their clothes and then they were shot on site, falling directly into the frozen pit. Then, the Nazi soldiers smeared oil on the walls of the building and set it on fire. Many Christians at that time said that they could hear the screams during the massacre. Lisa reads aloud from the document, "Thus ended Ilya, a Jewish community with centuries of glorious history."

Lisa journeys deeper into the village of Ilya with Alexander Gavrilik, a resident, who shows her where the Jews were forced to marched down the street to their deaths. Lisa and Tamara view what seems to be a rest area now, but back in WW2 it was used as a pit to shoot the Jewish people--three or four at a time. Lisa can't imagine the horror of what the Jewish people of Ilya went through during this time. Lisa can't help but be angered knowing that not only did her family go through this, but innocent children as well. Lisa realizes that if you convince people to be afraid of something long enough, you can convince them to become murderers. However, Lisa is glad she got to visit her relatives at their final resting place, calling the moment "worthwhile."

Lisa still has another mystery she wants to discover: whatever happened to Yuri, her father's distant cousin? Using Ancestry.com Lisa searches for the Polish ship Batory, and finds its manifest. However, the name Yuri Barudin never shows up but another name does: Boleslaw Barudin. Lisa travels to Gdynia, Poland to find the rest of her answers. There she visits the State Archives and is assisted by researcher Krzysztof Dzieciolowski. Lisa discovers that not only did Boleslaw change his name to Yuri, but that he was also married and had a son who was born on May 16th, 1949, right in Gdynia. Lisa, hopeful that Boleslaw's son is still in Gdynia, uses a phone book to find his name. But what she finds is even better: the name Boleslaw Barudin, the long-lost Yuri from her father's story. This could mean Boleslaw is still alive and has a family. Lisa makes the phone call and gets in touch with Tomek Barudin (Boleslaw's grandson)--and finds out that Boleslaw is still alive. Lisa can't wait to go meet with them.

It has been over 60 years since Lisa's father was visited by his cousin Yuri. Lisa, a little overwhelmed, meets the missing piece in her father's story and hopes he has the answers she is looking for. Lisa shows Boleslaw pictures of her father and grandmother, and finds out that Andrezj Barudin, Boleslaw's son, remembers seeing these pictures when his father was in New York. However, unlike Lee remembers, Boleslaw was not a witness to Meri's family's murder, but rather had heard the stories from the people around the town. Boleslaw survived when the Russians gave the people in the Polish territories a four-hour window to escape to Siberia. Boleslaw remembers it as being horrible--he joined the Russian army and then moved to the Polish army. He was only 15 years old at the time.

Lisa, after an arduous and emotional journey back through the Holocaust and the murder of her ancestors, has finally found the good news she's been searching for. Boleslaw, the man her father has known as Yuri, is alive and well. Lisa knows that this will be the news her father has been waiting to hear for over 60 years. To Lisa, this journey has been more than worth it, even the hard parts. Not wanting to wait to get back to the States, Lisa calls her father and tells him the good news.Back in Los Angeles, Lisa has another surprise for her father--reuniting with the cousin he lost contact with 60 years ago. Through Internet video, Lee contacts Boleslaw. Lee is ecstatic to know that Boleslaw remembers him and even back then, Boleslaw being a young soldier with a good heart, giving Lee and his mother $50 to help them in their poverty. Lee is happy, but also tearful at the discovery of his distant cousin. Yet, this is fulfilling for Lisa. She feels she is even more fortunate to be here because of all the people who suffered through the hardships and deaths of WW2 and those who were able to survive. If she can take away anything from this--it is that life does go on.