• 2 months ago
Randy Schoenberg (grandson of the famous composer) and his 18-year-old son Joey journey through Europe and the centuries | dG1faXNVbXdsRlBFZTA
Transcript
00:00I would hardly believe that you were really the descendant of my hero.
00:13I'm just blown away.
00:16I'm about to leave for Vienna and then Joey's going to come meet me.
00:20We're going on a little bit of a roots trip, looking at cemeteries and archives and documents
00:24and we'll see how far back we get.
00:26So I get to show you all these neat things.
00:29You're weird.
00:30I'm weird.
00:31I know.
00:32There are just two types of people.
00:33The people who know they're crazy and the people who have no idea that they're crazy.
00:37I at least know I'm crazy.
00:42You will see things you would never expect to see.
00:46I always have been interested in memory.
00:49That was my dream as a little kid.
00:50It's in the soil.
00:51It's in the air.
00:52It is poetry.
00:53It is mystery.
00:55You must do it the rest of your life.
00:59Closed.
01:01Now what?
01:02We're going on a treasure hunt.
01:0530 years ago, my neighbors told me, you have an American cousin here.
01:12Our families were separated after World War II and they really had no contact at all.
01:17The major point I think what Randy always does all his life is bringing people together.
01:23We're tracing our family history back 500 years.
01:27It's nice to know where I came from.
01:29Not a lot of people can say that.
01:31We're essentially missing so many generations because of these atrocities that happened
01:36in Europe.
01:37So many people came without family, without maybe memories.
01:41I'm the only person in 200 years who wants to look at this, right?
01:44He died 400 years ago and here we are in front of one of his books.
01:49To believe that something this old was owned and created by someone that I share blood
01:55with.
01:57I had this dream that I would start painting some pictures of the characters you're telling
02:03me about.
02:04It becomes real, you know?
02:06I think for me at least, tracing my family history gives me an entree into the history
02:11of the world.
02:12It was like magic.
02:14From Venice, they go to Prague, to Vienna, to Los Angeles.
02:17I think I was maybe more surprised at how enjoyable it was for me retracing some of
02:22the steps with my son.
02:23It looks a little expensive.
02:25We'll take it.
02:28It's that time of life when you start thinking about, okay, who am I going to be and what
02:31am I going to do and how am I going to do it?
02:34I will always remember it.
02:42You could wear that to the Met Gala.
02:46I don't think I want to wear it.
02:48I don't want to end up like Shlomo Mocho.
02:49He was burned at the stake after all.