BBC_Who do you Think you are David Suchet
Explore the world of genealogy and learn how to trace your family history. "Who Do You Think You Are?" UK, the BAFTA-winning show follows the journeys of well known personalities as they explore their family trees, uncover their at times surprising family history and discover fascinating and poignant facts about their ancestors that have been, until now, hidden in the annals of time.
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00:00All right? OK. OK.
00:06Great.
00:07I have an affinity with water.
00:13Sheila and I lived on a narrowboat for six years.
00:16Hi, darling, would you like a cup of tea?
00:18In this beautiful River Thames, for example,
00:21I adore being on it and I adore boating on it.
00:24Do I have any water in the blood?
00:28I'm always asked, you know, is Suchet French?
00:32But my name is not really French.
00:35It was changed from Suchedovice, I think, to Suchet.
00:42So how much of Eastern Europe is in me?
00:51I'm sure that we all have a place in our hearts
00:55and I'm sure that we all inherit a great deal of the past
01:01and I only know a little bit about myself.
01:05As an actor who likes to change himself to become other people,
01:10the more I know about myself, the more I can change.
01:56Second.
01:58British-born actor David Suchet is known to millions
02:02for his long-standing portrayal
02:04of Agatha Christie's famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot.
02:08His talent at playing foreign roles, like the great Belgian detective,
02:13has been the hallmark of an impressive career.
02:16David believes his success is due in part
02:19to his diverse European heritage.
02:23Dad was not that pleased
02:25when I announced that I wanted to be an actor.
02:28He was an extraordinary doctor, but he was very stern.
02:32He never spoke about things.
02:34I think I'm much more like my mum and my grandfather and my grandmother.
02:41They were the huge influence on me in my life.
02:44Well, that's my grandmother and my grandfather with my mum.
02:49I learned to live my life really with them.
02:52It was Jimmy who introduced me to photography, for example,
02:55which is a passionate hobby of mine.
02:57He became a press photographer, very, very well known,
03:00and when he died he had an exhibition of his photographs on the South Bank.
03:04My grandmother was born Elsie Gessard
03:07and she became a music hall artist.
03:10The rumour goes that my grandfather fell in love with her
03:13when he saw her in the stalls and looked up and he said,
03:16I saw the best pair of legs in town.
03:19She was music hall, she was song and dance,
03:22she was principal boy in Panto.
03:24And here was I, as a young man,
03:28announcing to my father, a surgeon, that I wanted to be an actor
03:32and I was passionate about it.
03:34Something in me drove me and still drives me to this day.
03:40In search of any other theatrical roots,
03:43David begins with the Gessard line,
03:45the English ancestors of his actress grandmother, Elsie.
03:51David knows that Elsie's father was called Walter Gessard,
03:54so he searches the 1871 census when Walter would have been a young boy.
03:59And here we are, Walter Gessard.
04:01Birth date about 1869, birthplace Sandwich Kent.
04:05Father's name George, mother Anne.
04:08View record.
04:11Oh, there's George Gessard.
04:13George Gessard, 33.
04:16He's a grocer's assistant in Sandwich.
04:20So a grocer's assistant, no, doesn't equal theatre.
04:27And now I go back ten years to the 1861 census.
04:31Gessard. Search.
04:34Oh, there's a George Gessard.
04:36He was 23 and a grocer living in Sandwich
04:40and there's another George Gessard, head, 53.
04:45So his father was called George.
04:48Bank profession or occupation.
04:51Gosh, I can't...
04:54Master...
04:56mariner?
04:59George Gessard was a master mariner.
05:01So he was on the sea.
05:03I had no idea about this at all.
05:06A master mariner.
05:11Oh, well, there's my water.
05:13That's my water connection, isn't it?
05:16Still no theatre, no theatre,
05:19but a bit and quite a lot of water
05:21because as a master mariner he would have been at sea.
05:26So while his grandmother Elsie
05:28seems to be the only thespian in the family,
05:31David has discovered that his great-great-great-grandfather,
05:37George Gessard, was a master mariner.
05:40I had no idea that any of my family were water-bound in any way.
05:47And to find out that he was a master mariner at sea,
05:51I would really like to find out more about that, yeah.
05:54I really would.
06:01David has ordered George Gessard's master certificate
06:05at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
06:10This is the certificate. Oh, great. Thank you.
06:13If I could ask you to put those on.
06:18My goodness me. This is the actual certificate, is it?
06:21Yeah. So we've got the master certificate of service.
06:24George Gessard.
06:26George Gessard, Ramsgate, Kent, 1807, date of birth,
06:30boy mate and master for 38 years.
06:34That's right. First he'd go as a boy,
06:36which would be basically an apprentice, learning the trade.
06:39The next step up would be as a mate,
06:41where he was sort of second in command
06:43of whatever vessel he was serving on.
06:45And then master, which meant he was in charge.
06:48And what were these, steamships?
06:50No, when he went to sea, and even at this period in the 1860s,
06:53predominantly still sailing ships.
06:55Really? Yeah. And then what have we got?
06:58Well, that's interesting.
07:00Sandwich, 1st of May, 1861.
07:04This is to certify that Captain George Gessard
07:08was master of my brig, Hanna,
07:12on the 28th of May, 1860.
07:19What's that? Founded.
07:21So she sank.
07:23Founded? So he sank?
07:26Yeah.
07:27Well, one of the brigs he commanded,
07:29or vessels he commanded, obviously sank.
07:31Wow.
07:34As master mariner, George Gessard was the captain of his ship,
07:38a highly responsible and respected position.
07:43His brig was a sizeable vessel,
07:45with two square-rigged masts atop a rugged wooden hull.
07:50Popular for its speed and manoeuvrability,
07:53the brig became the standard cargo ship of the 19th century.
07:56With such a reliable ship,
07:58and Gessard's 38 years of experience at sea,
08:01something very serious must have befallen the Hanna for it to sink.
08:071860, April, May, June. Here we are.
08:10David consults Lloyd's list,
08:12which has provided details of shipping losses since the early 18th century.
08:17May the 18th, May the 26th.
08:24May the 28th.
08:27Wow, wow.
08:28Ah.
08:31Hanna.
08:33This is it. The brig reported sunk yesterday.
08:38It was the Hanna of Sandwich, Tessard.
08:42Tessard?
08:43It should be Gessard.
08:44But anyway, she founded the 28th of May,
08:48nine miles off Kissing Land.
08:51I'm not quite sure where Kissing Land is.
08:56Using a nautical map,
08:58archivist Chris Ware shows David that Kessing Land, as it's now called,
09:03is on the coast of Suffolk.
09:06There. Kessing Land.
09:08There we go. I'm in the nearest large place.
09:11It's lower staffed.
09:12Would there be records there?
09:14They should be, because...
09:15They could have been rescued.
09:17Yes. Well, obviously, Gessard was rescued,
09:19so there could be some records there.
09:22Well, the process of what I'm doing is fascinating to me,
09:25because how many times,
09:27as the character that most people know me for, Poirot,
09:30how many times have I put on white gloves
09:32and gone into registry offices and gone down lists of people?
09:36And that was the first thing, actually...
09:38It's strange, isn't it?
09:39The first thing I thought when I put on those gloves,
09:42I thought, how many times have I done this?
09:45And I'm actually looking now...
09:50..for my bloodline, for myself.
09:54I just find it absolutely fascinating that my great-great-great-grandfather
09:59was a captain of a ship.
10:04And now I'm off to, hopefully,
10:06find out what happened nine miles off Kessing Land.
10:16The library in Lower Stoft
10:18holds copies of local newspapers from the mid-19th century.
10:26March.
10:30That's June the 5th.
10:32OK, so it may be on this one.
10:35The great storm... Ah!
10:37The great storm of Monday.
10:39Upwards of 100 vessels wrecked and lamentable lost.
10:43Wrecked and lamentable loss of life.
10:45During the height of the hurricane on Monday about midday,
10:48eight ships, having from 40 to 50 souls on board, went down
10:52and not a hand was spared of the crews.
10:55And this was tragic.
10:57Off Southwold, a large brig...
11:00..was seen to founder eight miles from the shore.
11:04And the worst fears are entertained for the fate of the crew.
11:07Oh, my God.
11:09I think this Southwold large brig,
11:13eight miles off the shore,
11:16has to be the one that George Jezard was captain of.
11:21I'm sure of it.
11:23The storm of May the 28th, 1860,
11:27was one of the worst the coast had experienced,
11:30with reports of snow blizzards 100 miles away in London.
11:35Coming from Middlesbrough, George Jezard and his crew
11:39would have been ferrying coal to London when the storm suddenly hit.
11:48It reached its full and terrible height at around midday,
11:53when ferocious gales and mountainous seas
11:56destroyed more than 150 vessels.
12:00There were heart-rending eyewitness accounts of men out at sea
12:05clinging desperately to the rigging of their foundering ships
12:09before they disappeared beneath the violent waves.
12:18Miles from shore, George Jezard and his crew
12:21were battling to keep the Hannah afloat,
12:24with little hope of survival.
12:30The library also holds a book on local sea rescues.
12:34Thank you very much.
12:36Storm Warriors of the Suffolk Coast.
12:42Chapter 222.
12:48I've got it.
12:50Then Craigie ran off into the sea
12:53and found the sandwich brig Hannah waterlogged.
12:57With a flag in her rigging.
13:00They took off the crew of seven only just before she went down.
13:06Who is Craigie? A particular Craigie was John from Southwold.
13:11So John Craigie was responsible for saving the crew of Hannah.
13:15And presumably then George,
13:18my great-great-great-grandfather, was saved as well.
13:22I mean, today is not a storm. We're not in a storm.
13:25But it's very windy.
13:27And I can see that ship out there...
13:32..that's come in, obviously, to stay still from the wind,
13:36but it must be listing.
13:3815 degrees.
13:4015 degrees.
13:4215 degrees.
13:4415 degrees.
13:4615 degrees.
13:48It must be listing.
13:5015 degrees.
13:52And it puts me in mind of what it might have been like
13:55during that really freakish storm.
14:00And I'm sure that George and his crew
14:04must have...must have thought, this is the end.
14:09Knowing that George Jezard and his crew were all saved,
14:13David wants to find out more about the rescue
14:16and the man who saved his great-great-great-grandfather's life,
14:21John Craigie.
14:2612 miles south of Lowestoft is the fishing village of Southwold,
14:31Craigie's hometown.
14:33David hopes to find someone who might know more about what happened.
14:38John Craigie.
14:40There is a John Craigie now.
14:42Same name.
14:44Same name, working on the restoration of the Alfred Corrie lifeboat
14:47down at the harbour.
14:49Thank you very much. Thank you.
14:55Ah, that's it, the Alfred Corrie Museum.
14:58That's the one.
15:01Oh, hello. Hello.
15:04Good morning. Good morning. I'm David Suchet.
15:07I've just come from the Southwold Museum.
15:10And I was told that if I come down here,
15:13I might be able to meet someone by the name of John Craigie.
15:18You've met him? You're John Craigie.
15:20I am. I'm David Suchet.
15:22And I'm David Suchet.
15:24And I'm David Suchet.
15:27You've met him? You're John Craigie.
15:29I am. Oh, well, hello again. Hello again.
15:32I believe that a relation of yours,
15:35way back in late May 1860,
15:38was responsible for actually saving a relation of mine
15:41during that terrible, terrible storm.
15:44Yes. This is he.
15:49John Craigie.
15:50He, in fact, is my great-grandfather.
15:53My great-grandfather. Your great-grandfather?
15:55So your great-grandfather saved my great-great-great-grandfather?
16:00Yes, that's correct. Wow.
16:02I have some more information up here,
16:05which perhaps you'd like to see. I really would.
16:08He actually went off in his own boat, the Fanny.
16:11It was a fishing boat, about 45 feet long, 15 feet beam.
16:15So would this lifeboat have been the same sort of proportions?
16:21It was about the same length and breadth.
16:23But on this occasion, they were using her to go out for salvage,
16:28looking for vessels in trouble.
16:30And that is when they found the Hanna.
16:33Oh, wow. The document here records that the crew of the Fanny...
16:39Yes. ..with nine persons,
16:42bearing down on the Hanna brig of sandwich in a gale,
16:46taking off her crew,
16:48the Hanna founded half an hour after the swing break.
16:52This was May the 28th, 1860.
16:54They were awarded a pound a man
16:57for saving the lives of your relative and his crew.
17:01Wow. A lot of money. Yeah, it was in those days, yes.
17:07Caught in the centre of the storm,
17:10miles from shore with a fatally damaged brig,
17:13George Jezard and his crew had no chance of survival
17:17until Craigie stumbled upon them.
17:20The lugger was a much smaller vessel than the wind-torn brig,
17:24but in a raging storm like this,
17:26it was considerably more stable and manoeuvrable.
17:31Seeing a salvage opportunity,
17:33Craigie approached Jezard's foundering vessel
17:36to check if the crew had already abandoned ship.
17:40Discovering there were still men on board,
17:42Craigie rescued Jezard and his crew with just minutes to spare.
17:47Before the Hanna sank beneath the waves.
17:53So extraordinary that your relation saved my relation's life.
17:56I've known for many years that he was involved in a lot of rescues,
18:00both with the lifeboat and with his own boats. Yes.
18:04But to my recollection, I've never actually met anyone
18:09who's descended from people he's saved.
18:12So it's mutually very interesting, isn't it?
18:15Yeah, very interesting. Yes.
18:22After the dramatic rescue,
18:24David's ancestor, George Jezard, returned to his life on the sea.
18:34I've discovered where my love of water comes from.
18:41George Jezard.
18:43To go to sea when he was 14 years of age,
18:48dedicating his life to the water for 38 years.
18:53What a life it must have been.
18:55And if he wasn't rescued by the Craigie family, he would have died.
19:02And because of what I know about my past,
19:06it's always been centred on, if you like, my foreign-ness.
19:11And knowing about George has given me an English identity
19:17far stronger than I would ever believe I could have.
19:27Having explored the ancestry of his English grandmother,
19:30David turns to the origins of his much-loved maternal grandfather,
19:35press photographer Jimmy Jarshay.
19:42David's younger brother, Peter, has researched a book on Jarshay,
19:46and David has arranged to meet him on the banks of the Serpentine
19:50in London's Hyde Park,
19:52where their grandfather took one of his earliest photographs back in 1923.
19:57I'd say, David, that this,
19:59the kids caught bathing naked in the Serpentine,
20:02together with the shot he took at the siege of Sydney Street,
20:05when Churchill was Home Secretary,
20:07arguably his two most iconic images.
20:09I mean, he wouldn't have used this camera, his camera, because this is 1954.
20:13No, that's too late. That's too modern.
20:16About here, do you reckon?
20:18I'd say that's where the shot was taken.
20:20Ready? Yep.
20:22Going to run? I'm not taking my clothes off for you.
20:25Shall I take it, just for the old times' sake? Go on.
20:29A scoop.
20:31The son of Jewish émigré parents,
20:34Jarshay was one of the very first paparazzi photographers.
20:38He captured some of the most iconic characters of the early 20th century,
20:43including the first picture of Edward, Prince of Wales, with Mrs Simpson.
20:50And that's not all.
20:52The first picture of Edward, Prince of Wales, with Mrs Simpson.
20:58And having a photographer around was great for the family album.
21:03I want to show you this extraordinary picture.
21:09There's Jimmy. Oh, my goodness.
21:11And you're absolutely wrapped with attention.
21:14I idolised him.
21:16He was the closest man and influence of my life,
21:20the biggest influence of my life of any man.
21:23David grew up with Jimmy, so learnt a lot about his life and work,
21:28but he knows very little about Jimmy's parents.
21:31Jimmy's father was also a photographer.
21:34Here, David, is a wonderful shot of Jimmy's parents, Arnold and Emily.
21:39Arnold started his photographic career running a studio in Paris
21:44before coming to this country in, what, 1870s, 1880s?
21:48How early is that?
21:50This was in the very, very early days of photography.
21:53I thought that he had a studio
21:57called the Eiffel Tower Studios in Paris,
22:01but, in fact, they weren't French, were they?
22:04I always thought they were, but how...
22:06Were they born in France? That I don't know.
22:08We don't, do we?
22:10They certainly emigrated to this country from Paris.
22:13But look at this.
22:15Photographic studio director, A Jarchier.
22:18Jarchier? Jarchier with a Y.
22:21So it's not Jar-sheh with an E?
22:23J-A-R-C-H-Y.
22:25Jimmy changed it, but why? Why did he change it?
22:27But why, I have no idea.
22:29It's all shrouded in mystery.
22:34Well, the plot thickens, doesn't it?
22:36My great-grandfather, Arnold, was Jarchier with a Y.
22:39Jimmy, my grandfather, changed that to Jar-sheh with an accent on the E.
22:45Brother Peter says they were French.
22:47I'm not so sure.
22:49So there's obviously family confusion going on here,
22:52or people not wanting to know what went on.
23:00Less than a mile downriver from Tower Bridge,
23:03after which Arnold named his business,
23:05is the site of his first photographic studio in London.
23:09Mr Webb. Mr Soushey.
23:12Here, David has arranged to meet historian David Webb.
23:16If you'd like to come through.
23:18We think that Arnold Jarchier had his studio on the ground floor,
23:25and this represents the site of the studio.
23:27Really? Yes.
23:30Oh, goodness me.
23:33Does this size, the whole size, represent what he would have...?
23:36Yes, it almost certainly represents the studio as far as we can...
23:38Quite large. Oh, yes.
23:40Remember that by the 1890s, there would have been arc lights available.
23:44Yes. There would have been backdrops available,
23:46all of which would have needed to be put away into one corner or another.
23:50Was photography sort of a cult or in, or was it...
23:57Had it been around long enough to be taken as part of your life?
24:00It had been around long enough
24:02to become part of an everyday experience by then, yes.
24:06Photography had been invented in France in the 1820s
24:10and had quickly become popular amongst ordinary people,
24:13wanting to immortalise themselves and the faces of their loved ones.
24:18By the 1890s, when Arnold Jarchier was running his business in Union Road,
24:23there were well over 300 photographic studios in London alone.
24:29He came over from France, didn't he? Yes, that's right.
24:32Do we know anything about where his studio in Paris might have been
24:37and how he worked there?
24:39Not exactly, but there is a reference in the British Journal of Photography
24:43to the fact that he actually claims to have been employed
24:48by various well-known French studios in Paris in the 1880s.
24:53In Paris? In Paris.
24:55Oh, he says, well, I have been previously employed...
24:57That's right, previously employed as operator and retoucher.
24:59Retoucher, that's in the developing. Yes.
25:01Monsieur Pierron, l'adret manque un panelier.
25:07Yes.
25:08So when he arrived in London, he took every effort
25:11to emphasise that he was from Paris... Yes.
25:14..to enhance his status in London.
25:16So maybe, then, he came over here
25:20because he thought he could hang his hat on being fashionably French.
25:25On his reputation, indeed.
25:27The sort of cachet of French certainly meant something.
25:39Having discovered that Arnold Jarcy
25:41did work with established photographers in Paris,
25:44David sets off for the French capital
25:47in the hope of finding Jarcy's Eiffel Tower studios.
25:58I'm now tracking down Arnold and Amélie.
26:05I'd like to know where he worked.
26:07I want to know more about the people he worked with.
26:10I mean, there's a great clue here.
26:12And I wouldn't have thought this was, in any way, fabrication.
26:16Otherwise, I don't think he would have put it in print.
26:19Pierron, l'adret manque un panelier.
26:23So I know he traded on his Paris-French connections.
26:29But the more I'm learning about them,
26:31I've got a feeling something's going on.
26:37Was there something they didn't want to talk about? I don't know.
26:40That's my sort of dramatic mind at work, I suppose.
26:45Maybe it was the Jewishness.
26:48Paris in the 1880s was an exciting place for a photographer to live,
26:53with over 400 studios.
26:59The famous Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889,
27:02built to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution.
27:06But did it also lend its name to Arnold Jarcy's photographic studio?
27:11To find out, David has come to the Musée Carnavalet,
27:15a museum devoted to the history of Paris.
27:20If David's great-grandfather Arnold Jarcy did have a studio here,
27:25this is where he'll find proof.
27:31This is a book about photographers in the 19th century in France.
27:35Yes.
27:36This is a book about photographers in the 19th century in France.
27:40Yes.
27:41So maybe you may find your ancestor there,
27:44and people he worked with.
27:46Oh, thank you.
27:49Well, I really feel I might be getting somewhere.
27:54So, J...
27:58J-A-R...
28:01J-A-R, J-A-R...
28:04Jardin, JĂ©rĂ´me.
28:08And then it goes, Joubert.
28:12OK.
28:14He's not there.
28:17Maybe one of these French photographers that he says he worked for,
28:23maybe I should look up them.
28:28The fact that Jarcy's name is not in the book
28:31means he didn't have a studio of his own in Paris.
28:35David checks the names of the studios
28:37of the four photographers Arnold worked with as an assistant.
28:40Not mentioned.
28:43Hm.
28:44But he cannot find any mention of a studio
28:47named after Paris's most famous landmark.
28:52It seems there was no Eiffel Tower Studios.
28:57He was an operator and a retoucher.
29:00I don't doubt that that is true.
29:03I don't doubt that at all.
29:05But I do doubt now whether he ever had a studio here himself.
29:11I think he was an opportunist.
29:13And he was determined to make something of himself.
29:18I think that's what brought him to London,
29:21and the main chance for him.
29:27So I think, you see, when he goes to London, he wants to impress.
29:31He wants to say in the best possible French accent.
29:35But, of course, I was at the Eiffel Tower Studios.
29:38It was very good there.
29:40And I think, actually, I think, knowing us Brits,
29:43we could be quite impressed by that foreign accent,
29:46that sense of foreignness.
29:48I think we like that, something mystique.
29:51Yeah.
29:52Good for him. I think good for him.
29:55Good for him.
30:03If Arnold made up the Eiffel Tower Studios,
30:06David wants to find out if his great-grandparents really were French.
30:20He's come to the Archive Nationale,
30:22Paris' vast repository of official records.
30:28Senior curator Claire BĂ©choux
30:30has uncovered Arnold and Amélie's wedding certificate.
30:39This is when they married.
30:41So they were married at Paris?
30:43Yes.
30:44They were married here?
30:45Yes, in Paris.
30:47Jarchi and... Salomon.
30:49Salomon.
30:50The maiden name? Yes.
30:52Of Amélie? Of Amélie.
30:54Amélie Salomon. Salomon.
30:58Arnold Jarchi was born...
31:01Born in Dunaburg.
31:03Dunaburg? Dunaburg.
31:05Russia?
31:06So he wasn't French?
31:08Oh, how interesting.
31:10TRANSLATION
31:11Did Amélie come from Russia also?
31:15TRANSLATION
31:17Yes.
31:18Amélie Salomon.
31:20Born?
31:21Grodno.
31:22Ah, Grodno.
31:23She was born in Grodno, Russia.
31:25So they were both Russian.
31:28Goodness.
31:29And do you know where they may have lived in France?
31:32In Paris?
31:33Rue des Tournelles.
31:35Rue des Tournelles.
31:36What number?
31:37Numero 21 Bis.
31:3921 Bis.
31:42So David's great-grandparents, Arnold and Amélie Jarchi,
31:46were not French, but Russian,
31:49and they probably lived in Paris for less than a decade.
31:58There we are. 21 Bis.
32:01There.
32:07Here we are. 21 Bis.
32:12Oh.
32:14That there is called a mezuzah,
32:17and I think the Ten Commandments or the laws are supposed to be in there.
32:25Oh, my goodness, look.
32:27Right next door.
32:29A synagogue.
32:35Since the French Revolution a century earlier,
32:38France was one of the few countries in Europe not to discriminate against Jews,
32:42and by the 1880s, Paris had an established Jewish community.
32:47Like thousands of other immigrants,
32:49Arnold and Amélie Jarchi fled anti-Semitism in Russia
32:53and settled in Paris before raising their family in London.
32:57They would have been young people,
32:59and I don't know what the state of things were like in Russia at that time,
33:03but they had to get out.
33:05I would think they had to leave.
33:07And came to Paris to start a new life.
33:13Very brave, very courageous.
33:21That refugee background, that heritage,
33:24gives one a certain need to achieve.
33:28You're going to keep going. You're not going to give up.
33:33Within me, certainly I feel something drives me,
33:38something really does drive me on and on and on,
33:41and even coming up to my 40th year as an actor, I don't feel I've begun.
33:46And I'm sure that comes from this sort of background.
33:55Like the Jarchis, the Suchets on David's father's side
34:00were also of Jewish, East European descent.
34:03They too changed their name, but no-one in the family knows why.
34:16Once again, I think the name Suchet was not our original name.
34:20I believe it came from a Russian name called Suchedovets.
34:26But whether it was because he was a very reticent man,
34:29he never spoke about things.
34:31So I'm on my way now to visit my elder brother, John,
34:35and ask him if he knows something.
34:38Because we never actually sat down together ever and talked about this.
34:45Hey, brother. Hello. Hello.
34:48Good to see you.
34:50David's elder brother, John Suchet,
34:54has also spent his life in the public eye,
34:57as chief newsreader at ITV for more than 30 years.
35:01I'm wanting to know more about Dad's life.
35:05I know nothing about it. Do you know anything?
35:07Well, I do, funnily enough, because when Mum and Dad lived here,
35:11I sat in the kitchen having tea with them,
35:13and I can't remember why the subject turned to the family
35:16and history and what have you.
35:18Because they didn't talk about it that much?
35:20No, but Dad just opened up.
35:22Dad said to me that...
35:25We know that he was born in South Africa,
35:28but it was Dad's dad who changed the name to Suchet.
35:32I don't know why he changed it to Suchet in South Africa.
35:36Now, I don't know why he chose a French-sounding name.
35:39In fact, we've got a picture here.
35:41There is Dad's dad, Izzy, Isidore.
35:44Isidore. Poirot, without the moustache.
35:46Is that not Hercules? I know!
35:48His family came from Lithuania.
35:50Where? Memel.
35:52All right. Memel.
35:54I know, because I'm a bit into the history of the area anyway,
35:58Memel is now called Klaipeda, or something like that.
36:03Let me have a look here.
36:05There we are, Klaipeda, Lithuania, 52 B6.
36:09Here's Lithuania, and there is Klaipeda,
36:13with Memel in brackets underneath.
36:15So they were Russian?
36:17No, because Lithuania in those days was part of Prussia.
36:20They were Prussian?
36:21Yeah, because that was part of East Prussia.
36:23All within this area? Yeah.
36:25But I don't know what records were kept in those days,
36:28particularly of Jews who wanted to get out anyway.
36:31And we know nothing. We know his name was Isidore Suchet.
36:34We don't know who his father was.
36:36We don't know who his brother was. No.
36:38We know nothing. No.
36:40And was he born in Memel?
36:44No idea. No idea.
36:47David's father, Jack Suchet, was born in South Africa,
36:50and according to John, their grandfather Isidore
36:53originally came from Memel, then in Prussia,
36:56part of the German Empire.
37:00Could any of Isidore's descendants in South Africa
37:03know more about his East European origins?
37:08Mavis Schneider is David's first cousin.
37:11She grew up with their grandfather Isidore in South Africa,
37:15so she's come to meet David to tell him all she knows.
37:18Hello. Hello, David.
37:20Hello. How lovely to see you.
37:23Good to see you. Big welcome.
37:25Yeah, isn't this amazing?
37:28That's a nice case.
37:30Oh, that's Isidore's case? Yes.
37:32That little case? Yes.
37:34Let me see what's inside.
37:39This is a passport of Grandpa Isidore.
37:43That's Isidore's passport? Yes.
37:45Mr Isidore Suchedowitz, also known as Suchet.
37:51I think he shortened it in Cape Town
37:53because it was such a complicated name.
37:55Or because it was too Jewish?
37:57Maybe, maybe.
37:59I knew Isidore because I always went to Cape Town with my mother.
38:03He was a quiet man, very dapper,
38:05and he was obsessive with regard to hygiene.
38:08He does sound like Poirot more and more, doesn't he?
38:11He's obsessive.
38:13Yes, he was, very similar.
38:15But he had a German accent. He spoke German.
38:17He spoke German? Yes.
38:19How interesting.
38:21He came to South Africa with his brothers in 1896.
38:241896, yeah? Yes.
38:26I don't know anything about the brothers.
38:30It was Benjamin.
38:32Benjamin? Yes.
38:34And there was Joseph.
38:36Joseph and Benjamin?
38:38Benjamin, and Isidore was in the middle.
38:40So Isidore was the middle son?
38:42Yes.
38:44There's one other thing that I've got which really may help.
38:47This letter was written by Gertie,
38:49who's the daughter of Uncle Benjamin.
38:51Right. OK.
38:53Transcript of letter from Gertie Rubin,
38:55named Suchedowitz.
38:57My father's parents, Jacob and Bela?
39:00Bela. Bela.
39:02Bela Suchedowitz were born in a small town of Russia,
39:05now Lithuania,
39:07near the well-known larger city of Memel,
39:09where I think the whole family settled.
39:11So these are my great-grandparents?
39:16Yes.
39:18Isidore's...?
39:20Parents. Parents.
39:23Jacob was a Talmudical student at 17 years of age
39:27when he married Bela, aged 14 or 15.
39:31They married so young.
39:34Because I knew nothing of this background at all.
39:40David has discovered his grandfather Isidore had two brothers,
39:44Benjamin and Joseph,
39:46and for the first time he's learnt the names of his great-grandparents,
39:50Jacob and Bela Suchedowitz.
39:54Whilst confirming that the family eventually settled in Memel, in Prussia,
39:58the letter throws up yet more confusion
40:01over the origins of David's grandfather, Isidore.
40:04Yeah, I mean, I'm told it was Prussia,
40:08but I did think that...
40:13that my grandfather was Russian.
40:18I thought that Isidore was Russian,
40:20but I'm told he spoke with a German accent and spoke German.
40:25I don't know.
40:29When David's ancestors lived here,
40:31Memel was in Prussia, part of the German Empire.
40:35At that time, the city was just 20km from the border with Russia.
40:41In 1947, Memel was renamed Klaipeda.
40:45It's now in the Republic of Lithuania,
40:48and the Russian border is many hundreds of miles further east.
40:56Today, Klaipeda is Lithuania's chief port
41:00and ocean gateway to the rest of the world.
41:04David hopes to find some record of his family here
41:07that might clarify where they came from.
41:10Oh, hello.
41:12He's hired genealogist Ruth Leiserowitz to help him.
41:16I'm really trying to find out more about my family,
41:19whose name was Suchedowitz.
41:21I think they're called in this time Suchedowitz.
41:24Suchedowitz. Yes.
41:26Do you have any information on them?
41:28We found an old address book.
41:31It's from 1898.
41:37Suchedowitz. Oh, wow.
41:39Suchedowitz Baylor. Yes.
41:42She's a widow,
41:45and she lived in Baderstrasse 89.
41:50So Jacob had died by that time.
41:54I think Jacob passed away.
41:57Do we have any idea where the family may have been before?
42:02In this moment, I have no idea.
42:05I think the family arrived quite in the 90s,
42:11for I checked all the papers from the Jewish community...
42:17Yes.
42:19..and the family was not on the documents.
42:22Yes, yes.
42:24Like the rest of the German Empire at this time,
42:27Memel was a safe and stable place for Jewish families,
42:31and as a port with a vibrant commercial centre,
42:34it attracted Jews from surrounding districts.
42:40However, by the time the Suchedowitzes lived here,
42:43Jews from neighbouring Russia were no longer allowed to settle.
42:48Although David knows that his family were living in Memel in 1898,
42:53there is no evidence of them here before this time,
42:57and no trace of where they came from.
43:01David has come to a dead end.
43:09Good evening. Good evening.
43:1122, please. Room 22.
43:13And here's the package for you, Mr Sushi.
43:15For me? Yes, for you.
43:17From Mavis, Johannesburg.
43:29Dear David, it was so lovely to see you the other day.
43:33I was so fascinated by your tracing our family history
43:37that before I left, I put in a request for some more information
43:41about Isidore and his brothers in South Africa.
43:44Unfortunately, it hadn't arrived by the time I left,
43:47but it was waiting for me when I returned home today.
43:52This is the application for a certificate of naturalisation.
43:55Name of applicant, Joseph Suchedowitz, who was my great-uncle.
44:00Present nationality and whether acquired by birth or naturalisation.
44:09You're kidding me. Turkish.
44:15Turkish naturalised.
44:18Present nationality, Turkish naturalised.
44:23What does that mean, then?
44:26Names of nationality of parents,
44:29Jacob Suchedowitz, Bela Suchedowitz,
44:33Hebrews, birthplace...
44:36Wow. Kratingen, Russia.
44:45Application for letters of naturalisation,
44:48Nachman Benjamin Suchedowitz.
44:51So this is Joseph's brother.
44:53Birthplace, Kratingen, Kovno, Russia.
44:58And this is Kratingen, so maybe they're the same place.
45:03So Isidore...
45:08Isidore, my grandfather, is between his brothers.
45:13He was the middle son.
45:16Could have been born in Kratingen, Kovno, Russia as well.
45:24So what on earth is Turkish naturalised?
45:31I've got no idea what that is at all.
45:36So if Benjamin and Joseph were both born in Russia,
45:40David can surmise that his grandfather Isidore, as the middle child,
45:44must have been born in Russia too.
45:52Intrigued by this, and the discovery that his great uncle Joseph
45:56was a naturalised Turk, David has a number of questions for Ruth.
46:00How are you?
46:02Good morning. I'm fine, thank you.
46:05It would appear that my great uncles, Joseph and Benjamin Suchedowitz,
46:12were born in Russia.
46:14And it says here, Kratingen.
46:20It was not far from here.
46:23I can show you an old map.
46:27Here we have Memel.
46:29Yes, that's where we are now.
46:31And here is the border.
46:36This dotted line.
46:37Of Prussia and...
46:38Prussia and Russia.
46:40Right.
46:41And here is Kratingen.
46:45Oh, it's near then.
46:47It's not so far.
46:49Now, if they're from here, in Kratingen,
46:53how would Joseph have become a naturalised Turk?
47:02I have no answer at this moment.
47:07Great, OK.
47:09The mystery is still to be solved.
47:15David's grandfather Isidor was born in Kratingen,
47:19which at that time was on the edge of a beleaguered part of Russia
47:22known as the Pale of Settlement.
47:27The Russians were determined to segregate the Jews,
47:30forcing them to live in a vast strip of land
47:32that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
47:40Life for Jews in the Pale was harsh and increasingly dangerous.
47:49Waves of pogroms, or race riots,
47:52were directed against the Jewish community,
47:55and young Jewish men like David's grandfather Isidor
47:58faced conscription into the Russian army,
48:01where they suffered religious persecution and often death.
48:10The railway that crossed the border between Russia and Prussia
48:13still exists to this day.
48:29Now we are on the border,
48:31and you should imagine we had each day trains who started here
48:36and gathered Jewish people who went to the free world
48:43from this Pale of Settlement
48:46where we had the pogroms and the conscriptions.
48:52It was not allowed to Jews to leave this Pale of Settlement,
48:58but they did, of course.
49:00You needed a lot of courage to do it.
49:03The Russians had to shoot people if they illegally crossed the border.
49:14It was here that David's grandfather Isidor and his family
49:18escaped from the threat of persecution in the Pale of Settlement
49:22to the safety and freedom of Prussia.
49:37However safely I might have been brought up in England,
49:40my background is of Jewish travellers trying to escape.
49:45I imagine Jacob and Bela almost pushing Isidor out to avoid the conscription,
49:50which I've learned could last years,
49:53and rob the young men of their religious identity,
49:57if they survived at all.
50:00A horrific thought.
50:05Ruth has been searching for further records of David's family in Kretinga.
50:11Because Suchedowicz is a Germanised name,
50:14she's tried to work out what their original name might have been in Russia.
50:41A Jewish butcher.
50:43A Jewish butcher? Yes.
50:45And in Hebrew, you write it in this way.
50:49Wow.
50:50You never write words in Hebrew.
50:55And I can see now how easy it would have been to make it suche.
50:59Yes, and then you have the suffix witz.
51:02And what's witz?
51:04Witz means son of.
51:07It means son of a butcher.
51:09Son of a butcher. Yes.
51:11And then I started to beg, to seek again,
51:17in the computer, in the online, the shochet.
51:21And I found a Jacob and a Bela shochet.
51:25Oh, you did that? Yes.
51:27Oh, I don't believe this.
51:29That's a shochet.
51:31And that's a yankel.
51:33You know, in yankel in Yiddish is Jacob.
51:37Shochet. Bela.
51:39They are listed in 66 in Trishke.
51:44Trishke.
51:45What sort of place would Trishke be?
51:48Oh, I can show it on today's map where Trishke is.
51:52Does it still exist?
51:54Yes, it existed.
51:56It's nearly 80 kilometres from here.
52:00We are now here in Krettinga.
52:03And there is Trishke.
52:09David has learnt the original Jewish form of his family name, shochet,
52:14and in doing so has been able to reveal the names
52:17of his great-grandparents, Jacob and Bela.
52:33With this discovery, David sets off to find Trishke,
52:37his family's hometown.
52:48Names have always been important to me
52:50because it's the very first thing that you're given,
52:54if you like, at birth.
52:56That is your initial identity.
52:59And therefore, for me...
53:04..I've always had a question about my name.
53:09I never had pure knowledge of the family name.
53:14Now, with shochet,
53:17I know that it would be the equivalent in England of Mr Butcher.
53:23DOG BARKS
53:27Trishke is a small market town
53:29in the middle of the Lithuanian countryside.
53:35At the time David's great-grandparents, Jacob and Bela, lived here,
53:39the town was deep inside the Pale of Settlement
53:42and a large percentage of the population was Jewish.
53:47Today, after nearly two centuries of persecution,
53:51there are no Jews left in Trishke.
53:55Wish I could read Hebrew.
53:59All that remains of the community that once thrived here
54:03is the vast Jewish cemetery on the edge of town.
54:22If there are...
54:25..any shochets here,
54:28or died here and they were buried here,
54:31then presumably this is where they lie.
54:37It's the end of my journey,
54:39but from here was the beginning of my family's journey.
54:44For such a small town,
54:47this is a huge cemetery.
54:53Ruth has uncovered one last document
54:56relating to David's great-grandfather, Jacob.
54:59Hello. Hello. What have you found?
55:02Here. It's a death certificate from Jacob.
55:05His death certificate? Yes.
55:09How extraordinary. Read me through it. What does it say?
55:12It says, Memel, the 23rd December, 1895.
55:17Jacob Suchedowicz, 60 years old.
55:21Yes. A Jewish religion,
55:24living in Memel, Baderstrasse 89.
55:28Yes. Born in Sattfahrt in Turkey.
55:31Born where?
55:33He was born in Turkey.
55:37It's written here.
55:39It said, my great-grandfather was born...
55:41Born in Sattfahrt.
55:43There isn't any such town, but...
55:46There's no such town? No, no, no.
55:49I think he went with his sons to the Turkish consulate
55:54and asked for a passport. For a passport.
55:56And so he was born in Sattfahrt.
55:59He went with his sons to the Turkish consulate
56:02and asked for a passport. For a passport.
56:04And they gave him. Yes.
56:06Why would they need a pass?
56:08They need a pass to stay in Germany,
56:11to have a permit, a stay permit.
56:15So where was he born?
56:17I think he was born here. Here. Here somewhere.
56:21Ruth believes Jacob's death certificate solves the riddle
56:26why his ancestors escaped Russia and settled in Prussia
56:30and why his great-uncle Joseph was a naturalised Turk.
56:37Whilst still here in the pale,
56:39Jacob somehow acquired Turkish naturalisation for his family.
56:44Only by hiding their Jewishness behind this new Turkish identity
56:49were the Shochetz, including David's grandfather Isidor,
56:53able to cross the border
56:55and escape a life of persecution in the pale.
56:59So, in a sense...
57:03..Jacob, or Jacob, my great-grandfather...
57:08..you could say he was responsible for saving my whole family.
57:12Yes. Mm-hm. He did all for the family.
57:16Good man. Thank you very much. You're welcome.
57:20What a story. Yeah.
57:24Amazing story.
57:34It's been an extraordinary journey for me.
57:38I have a great sense of Jacob and Bela
57:41not wanting to stay still within their small picture frame
57:45but always looking beyond,
57:47always wanting to broaden their horizons
57:52and to seek new lives,
57:54to get away from their sense of oppression and Jewish persecution.
58:02To get away and to start a new life.
58:05And they had that.
58:09They had that free spirit.
58:11And that's...that's thrilling to me.
58:24And there's more from Who Do You Think You Are next Wednesday night.
58:27And there are big surprises in store for Jodie Kidd
58:30as she delves into her family's past.
58:32That's at the same time at nine o'clock.
58:41Watch the full show exclusively on Premiere!