i'm jamie colby for "strange inheritance." thanks so much for watching, and remember -- you can't take it with you. [ bat cracks, crowd cheers ] >> a daughter inherits a mysterious diary from her father, an artist who survived the holocaust. >> he had to live so that he could show the scenes that he witnessed. >> his words become her quest. >> i made a promise to my father that i would show his artwork to the world. >> these pages, her road map. >> here is a man who went through so much horror. >> but can she recover what the nazis stole from him? >> what do you think went on in that room? ♪ ♪ i'm jamie colby, and, today, i'm in rockland county, new york, an hour north of new york city.

i am meeting a viewer who wrote me about her strange inheritance and how it turned her into a sort of time traveler, right back to her father's harrowing past. >> my name is miriam friedman morris. my father, david friedman, a painter and holocaust survivor, left me a diary, "tagebuch fuer miriam friedman." as i read it, the diary led me on a remarkable journey that continues to this day. >> miriam, i'm jamie. >> hi. welcome. >> miriam wrote us an e-mail that said... it was so impassioned, i had to meet her. my goodness. look at all of this. i feel like i'm in fine-art gallery or a museum. tell me about your parents. >> my parents were both holocaust survivors, and in 1954, we moved from israel to

new york. >> in her mind's eye, little miriam sees only gauzy pictures of her father's past. he doesn't tell her all that much. she knows he was a painter, who, in world war i, drew combat scenes on the russian front and was decorated for bravery. but she's in the dark about the full scope of his artistic career, including hundreds of drawings of top personalities for german newspapers and exhibitions of his work in major cities. in december 1938, friedman fled berlin for prague, czechoslovakia, after what's known as "kristallnacht" or "the night of broken glass," when jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues throughout germany and austria were ransacked. in prague, he continues to paint portraits. he snaps black-and-white photos of them and puts them in albums, which somehow survive. >> i would go and look in the albums, and this one really spoke to me.

>> but he doesn't tell her the stories behind those pictures. >> he knew that i was looking at the pictures in the book. i was really quite fascinated with them. he just would watch me, but he wouldn't really say much. >> young miriam knows her father was in a concentration camp but not how he got there or how in the world he survived. how did your parents meet? >> they met in a small town about one hour from prague. it was a place where the survivors went for healing. >> nor does miriam know about her father's disappointing attempt in israel to use his talent to express the horrors of the holocaust. he'd only write about that years later. >> "i had a one-man show in tel aviv with paintings of the concentration camps. i'm sorry to say, the interest was only small, and learned people do not want to talk about concentration camps. >> feeling defeated, the 60-year-old artist moves his

wife and 4-year-old daughter to new york and madison avenue. and that was really, like, the "mad men" era. your dad went into advertising. >> that's right. and the company moved us from new york to st. louis, where he was a lead artist. >> that's the dad miriam grows up knowing -- the guy who paints these gigantic billboards for major clients, like michelob and 7 up. what was your childhood like in the united states? >> we were happy and we had a beautiful apartment. i noticed many of our friends had accents and had the numbers on the arm. the survivors all were the same, in the sense they wanted their children to have a better life. >> in search of the american dream. >> indeed. >> for david, the american dream demands compromise. >> "i had to forget about art paintings and i had to forget what was hidden in my heart -- the pictures from the

concentration camps. i had to work hard to make a living. >> then, in 1961, an envelope in the mail sends his spirits soaring. it contains a reparations check -- $4,350 -- from the west german government for his looted art. it wasn't the money but the official recognition that his life's work -- all but obliterated by the nazis -- meant something. >> i remember lots of excitement in the house. i really didn't understand it at the time, but i knew that it was very important to my father, who had been recognized for his case against the german reich for the loss of his paintings. >> now, at 68, david sets up his easel, full of trepidation. >> "i had the idea to try again but was afraid to start. >> he alone can put to canvas the evil he witnessed. he tried years before. he's now ready to try again.

>> "in december 1963, in the night, i quietly left our bedroom for my studio, placed a piece of paper on the easel, took charcoal, and made my first sketch." >> over four furious months, friedman creates 28 haunting drawings -- memories of the holocaust. >> it was like the pent-up emotion of images that lived inside of him. he just tore it out of his head and put it on this canvas. >> the drawings awe miriam. she becomes more and more curious about her father's past. on a college trip to germany in 1970, she visits an aunt she'd never met, who has a painting she's never seen. >> it was a painting of my father's first wife, mathilde friedman. >> miriam had only heard

mathilde spoken of in whispers. david married her in 1937, but she perished during the war. >> i wrote my father from germany that i had seen the painting, and he didn't understand what i was talking about. >> her father arranges to have the painting sent from west berlin to st. louis. >> my father took the package and he went into the bedroom for three days. >> what do you think went on in that room? >> i think he was remembering a woman that he had loved and lost. >> after college, miriam launches her own career as a fashion designer. she moves to new york, marries harold morris, and starts a family. then, in february 1980, her father peacefully passes away at 86. and then comes her strange inheritance. >> when my father died, my mother handed me the little

diary with my name on it. >> he started writing it the day miriam was born. turns out that the father who had revealed only fragments of his past would now fill in the blanks. >> the more i learned about him, it sort of drove me to rescue him from obscurity. >> where it drove her next. >> but, first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. in the movie "the monuments men," george clooney is intent on recovering what work of art looted by the germans? the answer in a moment. research shows that people remember commercials with exciting stunts. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's something you shouldn't try at home. insurance is cool. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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>> as a girl, miriam had picked up inklings about a half-sister with the same name who was killed in the war. but now, reading about her, in her father's hand... >> i was quite astounded that many of the things that he spoke about from his first daughter were similar to experiences that i had with my father, like he taught her how to paint and he wrote about how he kept scrapbooks of her art. >> she reads on. her father reveals details about his life after the germans conquered most of europe and began deporting millions of jews to ghettos and concentration camps. the nazis loot her father's apartment in berlin and steal his artwork after he and his family flee to prague, czechoslovakia. >> "i was only married for two years and had a 3-month-old baby. and there was the anxiety of how to get out of this hell."

>> in 1941, the germans deport friedman, now 48, his wife, mathilde, and their daughter from prague to a large ghetto in the polish city of lodz. in august 1944, the nazis liquidate the ghetto and deport the 65,000 jews living there to concentration camps. >> my father was on the last train to auschwitz, and he never saw his wife and child again. >> upon arrival at auschwitz, men and boys are led one way, women and girls another. he never learns how and where his wife and daughter die, though the gas chamber is most likely. david's life is spared. >> "i would not be alive today were it not for a lucky fluke." >> using improvised paints and brushes, david creates a mural of a nearby river on the prison wall.

his talent impresses the guards. they let him live. friedman survives five more months in the nazis' most notorious death camp. then, on january 25, 1945, the russians arrive. he is liberated and heads to czechoslovakia. but miriam's strange inheritance does more than fill in the gaps about her father's life. it leaves clues for miriam to find his lost art and implores her to restore his legacy, which, like so many others, was all but erased by the nazis. >> "between 1919 and 1933, my works were constantly on view in the various exhibitions of the berlin academy of the arts." >> the more i learned about him, it sort of drove me to rescue him from obscurity. >> to rescue him from obscurity, miriam writes to museums and archives in germany and czechoslovakia. polite responses offer nothing.

it's as though her father never painted, never existed. european art appraiser robin starr says miriam faces a needle-in-the-haystack challenge. how much art did the nazis loot? >> millions of works. hitler was collecting them for his own private collection, and there were soldiers at all ranks who were grabbing and plundering. >> in 1994, miriam flies to europe to use the diary to reassemble the pieces of her father's life. what did you find? >> i went to berlin, to the newspaper archives that i had been told previously did not exist. and i was very excited to find portraits my father published in the newspaper. >> it's miriam's first big discovery -- a vast spread of her father's sketches, from the 1920s to early '30s, of luminaries including politicians, sports

personalities, and musicians. and what did finding the newspaper clipping do for you? >> it showed me that i could find more. it would help me find evidence of the lost work that the nazis did not destroy. >> and miriam's strange inheritance is about to lead to more evidence -- kept by the nazis themselves -- that will resurrect some of friedman's early paintings and shed new light on his darkest works. this is a particularly disturbing drawing for me -- electrocution by choice. why do you think your father didn't make that choice? that's next. >> here's another quiz question for you. the answer in a moment.

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& free premium delivery when you add a base. ends monday. >> it's "b." in 1939, museum director jacques jaujard smuggled it out of the louvre in an ambulance to the french countryside. >> like an impressionist painting that gets clearer as you step back from it, so, too, has miriam friedman morris' image of her father. she's been following clues in this diary, which she inherited after he died. she's had some luck in berlin, where she found hundreds of drawings he did for the newspapers. then, in 2003, miriam and her daughter, lauren, meet with the director at the jewish museum in prague. the museum discovers, in its archives, these meticulous nazi-era catalog cards that name specific works of art by her

father and when the nazis looted each one. and along with the catalog cards... >> i discovered the jewish museum held several of my father's works. >> including this image of a jewish holiday celebration and lithographs of david's hometown in czechoslovakia. in all, miriam uncovers nine of her father's artworks. and what does it feel like for you, miriam, when you find a piece of your father in that way? >> it is so exhilarating. it feels so triumphant. one more work that has survived that the nazis did not destroy. >> one painting she discovers is of a jewish cemetery in prague, a cemetery which she visits with her daughter, lauren. >> it was just unbelievable to me that his artwork existed outside my house, outside the museums here in the united states, and it made me very excited to see what else we could discover. >> they discover, next, a living link to her father's past.

april 2009, miriam's speaking to a new york audience about that photo album from her youth. >> it showed my father's pre-war career, and there was a portrait of a young girl. she looked to be about 8, 9 years old. >> suddenly, another speaker on the panel gasps. she recognizes this girl. >> she said that it was her friend, and she had moved to buffalo. >> does she still have the portrait? >> yes. >> here, after all those years, is the actual portrait david friedman painted back in 1941. >> it's the only portrait painting, from this period of my father's life as a refugee in prague, to survive. >> when you've identified someone that was in one of your father's paintings, what is going on with your heart and your mind? >> it's just like everything comes together. >> it also makes it impossible to forget that others her father

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"strange inheritance." >> we've told you the story of artist and holocaust survivor david friedman, his first wife and daughter killed by the nazis, his life's work looted, how he came to america and started over... and how the strange inheritance he left his second daughter sent her on a journey to reclaim his legacy. we haven't told you about his dying wish and his daughter's vow.

>> did you make him a promise at his bedside? >> all he could think about was what was going to happen to his concentration-camp pictures. i made a promise to my father that i would show his artwork to the world. >> those concentration-camp pictures were not the ones lost in europe or mentioned in the diary. they're the ones he furiously drew here in america, as a retired sign painter, in his late 60s. but they were, in fact, his most impassioned work, the art father and daughter both knew that he was put on earth to create. keeping her promise, she donates some to the u.s. holocaust memorial museum here in washington, d.c. this is a particularly disturbing drawing for me -- electrocution by choice. the drawing depicts concentration-camp inmates throwing themselves against the electrified barbed wire. >> people had been dehumanized, tortured. they could no longer think, and

this was a better option. >> why do you think your father didn't make that choice? >> he had to live so that he could show the scenes that he witnessed. that was a powerful reason for his survival. >> he had to live to show what he witnessed. miriam also ensures his paintings find a home at the renowned yad vashem holocaust museum in jerusalem. half a century after david friedman felt defeated by that failed exhibit in tel aviv, his paintings are now on permanent display at israel's leading holocaust memorial, all due to a daughter inspired by her strange inheritance. >> even when i was young, i knew he was special. i wanted him to be recognized as an artist and i have achieved that. >> are you proud of her? >> very. >> miriam's daughter, lauren. one day, her mother's strange inheritance will pass to her. what will she do with it?

the diary, the story, your mother's efforts -- do you feel a responsibility to continue her work? >> i feel a huge responsibility. i just hope that everybody from the next century on will not forget what happened. >> behind me are bleak reminders of kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass," the awful night in november 1938 that convinced david friedman he had to flee berlin. but here's what happened 70 years later, in november 2008 -- the berlin philharmonic commemorated kristallnacht with a concert, accompanied by an exhibit of david friedman's artwork. the 30 portraits featured jewish composers, musicians, and conductors, many of whom were part of the berlin orchestra before the nazis took it over, an historical treasure from an era the nazis tried to erase and

a testament to the enduring power of david friedman's artistry. i'm jamie colby. thanks for watching "strange inheritance." >> two proud texans with a passion for old west guns, guts, and glory. >> i do see bullet holes. >> two strange inheritances -- one a lone star mystery... >> i'm roy roberson. >> i don't think he wanted anyone to have the combination, because that was his control over the pandora's box. >> ...the other a texas-sized challenge. >> this may be financially one of the dumbest things that i have ever done. >> together, can they make history? >> fire! [ explosion ] [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ]