Did Rita Wilson's father go to a labour camp?

As Rita Wilson travels to Greece and Bulgaria, she uncovers the untold history of her late father. Her journey begins in Greece where she visits her father’s hometown and the place of his birth. The information she receives leads her to Bulgaria where she learns of the hardships and triumphs that shaped her father’s life and led him to the United States. Rita’s emotional journey brings her to a discovery that she never expected.
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[@zazitati5139]

Verry touching story Miss Wilson ! The life of your father worth a movie!

[@washcloud]

"Miss"...? What am I missing here.

[@judithmitchell4667]

Not too old. My dad was born in 1913 and my grandpa was born in 1878. I wasn't born til 1959. Sometimes there are big spaces between relative levels. I in turn, didn't have my child until 2000. We all got around to having kids later in life. LOL.

[@judithmitchell4667]

Hi Jamie - Glad to know I'm not the only one. I wish I had your mom's problem. My mom was like that as well. Everyone always thought she was 10 - 20 years younger than she was. Have a great day.

[@soyuz281]

Going to prison while being part of Axis army probably saved his life. Rita probably exists because of his father's imprisonment during WW2.

[@sugarbaby1954]

Not me, I'm crying twice. I'm watching a second time, I believe it is important to learn how ruthless people operate. I am so glad he escaped, I'm just sad he wasn't able to take is brother. Who new he had gone through so much so young.

[@donnabushka5520]

My grandfather’s name was also Halil, born in Albania 🇦🇱, not to far from the Greek border

[@archeewaters]

this is very interesting and is the same timeline as my parents, in close proximity. my dad was in a labor camp in greece. he too did not go into detail.

[@chloenorriss8383]

What a honour I share the same birthday as Rita Wilson❤ her husband and her are my favourite

[@Vanayr]

My father escaped around the same time to Turkey. The Turks placed him in prison for 6 months thinking he might be a spy, but he would tell me that was still better than life under the communists.

[@heaven-is-real]

Democrats in the USA might as well be communists, they think Communism is a wonderful Utopia. (They are in for a rude awakening.)

[@washcloud]

I'm sorry you have to hear it, but your father was an idiot.

[@kaybonette]

It hurts to think your father suffered in jail. For Rita it is new information.

[@Look_What_You_Did]

Jail? Fing entitled mericans.... Labour camp is nothing like a jail.

[@washcloud]

Just like some other memeber here wrote above, the fact that he wasn't in the front, possibly saved his life. She actually should be glad than hurting.

[@latifah-1968]

RITA BIG HUG 🫂 🤗 FOR YOU FROM BOSNIAN WOMAN, I LOVE SOOO MUCH YOUUU AND YOUR HUSBAND TOM HANKS 😊😊😊😊

[@cdenni]

Queen Rita of New York ✨️

[@ntenimarkorareincarnation4182]

Her father is Bulgarian Muslim and her mother Greek Orthodox

[@sotiriapapadopoulou8945]

Yes, I think her father was a Pomak, a Bulgarian-speaking Muslim.

[@ntenimarkorareincarnation4182]

@@sotiriapapadopoulou8945 yes so she's half Greek therefore GREEK!

[@esinokur9300]

Her father was Turkish decent, as it is clearly shown in the documents was being read. I also noticed her relatives speaking Turkish among themselves.

[@yurtman3491]

He is Turkish ,,his family live in 🇹🇷🕊🇬🇷Greece,Thay all speaks Turkish ,,,komsu dobra dobra konus🌎🕊🧿

[@brockb9051]

İn the other video her father s relatives were speaking Turkish. İ understood everything.

[@ivanronin8209]

He was in a Labor Camp but also in Prion too its ok . My Father lied to me too about his Military Service in the Bulgarian Army . By the way Rita Plovdiv is an Amazing City !!! -- The Oldest Living City in Europa !!!

[@user-qy4ov8dp5y]

Поздрави от Пловдив - Европейска столица на културата през 2019 година!

[@AdultThirdCultureKid1971]

That's an interesting piece of information. I went to Bulgaria with one of my sisters for a cousin's wedding there and I noticed that one of the signs in our hotel bathroom had a reminder in English, Cyrillic, and Greek on it.

[@kara4590]

He was turkish.i m from same village and we always considered ourselves turkish

[@electra1920]

In your dreams

[@user-rd8fs5yb3q]

Kara I m from the area too. You can consider yourselves as you like. But the historical truth is only one. It's like the Greek elections. We chose our rapist to govern us. So sad.

[@Aquarian55]

​@@electra1920doesnt need to be in his dreams because it is a fact. The Bulgarian document states he was ethnic Turkish and also explains he was trying to cross the border into Turkey.

[@user-wr8gz7bn5o]

@kara4590 of course he was a Turk. But he chose a Greek wife . That’s all. Let’s not make a fuss of it. He was lucky he left for the US.

[@selimsaygun155]

8:22 says Turkish descent ?

[@washcloud]

It does. So what.

[@husamabed6527]

America traditionally for centuries has homed people seeking for freedoms, and prosperity. Blessed be!

[@nillyk5671]

True but in doing so they took the home, freedom and prosperity of the natives.

[@mysteriousjz]

There are so many contradicting comments about her father origin. Why did she not ask her father about their origin? What am I missing?

[@jeanledoux3793]

There is a lot of injustice in the world.

[@yurtman3491]

He is Turkish,,,RITA WILSON real name MargaRITA IBRAHIMOF,,,,,,She is lucky ,,have a father like real cantelman Mr Alan Halil Ibrahimof ,,Turks we say bayefendi,,,her father relative live greece and thay are speaking Turkish 🕊🌎🇬🇷🧿🇹🇷she can make beautiful movie about her father real life and world 2 war and comunist time latsa people has difficult life ,,Tom Hanks great person,,good actor you need help he is there for you(lol)father story ,,,🎥🔜My father And me MargaRITA Wilson

[@electrolina1]

Pomak populationa biologically are slav/bulgarian but speak Turkish. Most of them light skinned with blue eyes. Ibraimof the ending of the name is Bulgarian. But under occupation people change names and religions. Cultural identity and biology are different things. A DNA test would give a precise answer.

[@freezing5]

No, there were no PLASTIC bottles then Rita! Not in 1940s! Glass bottles were essential to carry precious water - or maybe used as lamps. They were fragile and hard to come by. Manufacturing in war time is minimal, nowhere to obtain bottles except steal them. The bottles might have been a good commodity to sell on. The sentence might be harsh for a 20-y-o, but looting by any army reflects badly on the entire army.

[@miriamh2551]

That's if he really even did it

[@eh1702]

I wondered about these being siphon bottles. What were they for? Fuel?

[@washcloud]

@@miriamh2551 ,,,he most probably DID do it, in order to avoid getting send to some front and getting killed there.

[@mashtires1848]

Why didn’t she ask him all these questions while he was still alive and young?… 🤔

[@savorypixels199]

Perhaps he wouldn’t respond

[@marthaguerra.1451]

Same question we all ask ourselves. Reminiscing brings back old memories, then the questions arise. ❤

[@Perkelenaattori]

My grandfather was a WW2 veteran and he never spoke of the war at all. Some people just don't.

[@AdultThirdCultureKid1971]

@@Perkelenaattori Same with my maternal granduncles. They never spoke of the war at all, either.

[@cherrylane79]

People don't talk. Not even relatives.

[@kourtourafi]

I'm speculating here, but I think her father felt more Turk than Greek. In 1923, after the defeat of the Greek Army in Asia Minor, a treaty was signed between Greece and Turkey in Laussane, by which an exchange of populations was agreed upon. So, within this frame, many Turks were forced to leave Greece and migrate to present day Turkey and correspondingly many Greeks were forced to leave Turkey and migrate to present day Greece. Only two communities were exempted; the Greek population of Constantinople and the Turkish population of Western Thrace, where lies Xanthi and the village of Rita Wilson's dad.

[@antek-vj5ey]

Muslim population of greece is not turkish. They are slavs they are greeks and they are roma aka indians.

[@kourtourafi]

@@antek-vj5ey The important question is not what they are, but what they feel and think they are.

[@electrolina1]

@@antek-vj5ey probably bulgarian in origin

[@user-rd8fs5yb3q]

Kourtourafi This is correct up to a point. I searched it, you can too it's easy. He married a Greek Christian orthodox woman and he baptized Christian orthodox. Rita grew up as Greek Christian orthodox. All this in USA. He was not forced. Secondly the Greek population came to Greece was the double and more than the population left. The population that remained in Greece rise and grow until now. The Greek population in todays Turkey almost don't even exist. That is tragic on his own. People don't disappear. You can see a turkish movie for the facts of 1955 in Instanbul ( about the violation against Greek population). The population of the Rita's father village has nothing to do with the exchange. They were all there before the ottomans an they all remained there when they left, like many villages in the Greek mountains. And something else. The ottoman population in Greece during ottoman empire was transfered from minor Asia to Greece, hundreds thousands. Of course among the population that left Greece were thousands exchristians who forced to became ottomans and they couldn't stay because of this. The Greek population in minor Asia was there thousand years before ottomans. Nothing of these are secrets. If you search you find. If somebody want to sleep or to confuse is another matter.

[@user-rd8fs5yb3q]

@@kourtourafi when you don't know your history you can't go on. It's important. These people live in a lie, at least many of them (Pomaks) It isn't fair for them.

[@ivanronin8209]

Rita Wilson Birth Name is --- Margarita Ibrahimov '' ! ok . She is Not Greek . She is a Bulgarian Pomak Muslim '' form the Rodopi Mountain area of city of Smolyan . A Beatufull place by the way .

[@jimanast3593]

Pomaks speak a Bulgarian-Turkish language, but preexisted the Bulgarians in the region; they aren't Bulgarians!

[@washcloud]

The birthplace of her father is not either the Rodopi area or "Smolyan". It's Oreo, Xanthi - Greece. Which did not make him an "ethinc Greek" , but he WAS a Greek Muslim citizen alright. Plus her mother was a Greek Orthodox Christian of Greek descent, northern Epirus, present day Albania.. All that make her case eligible to claim Greek ancestry, if she wishes to.

[@jimanast3593]

Not pronounced Zanthi, but Xanthi.

[@washcloud]

Wilson herself pronounced it perfectly as "KsAn-thi" however. Dunno what you're referring to. (...btw, "X" as a word-starter IS pronounced as "Z". In other words, it doesn't make much sense when you're proposing "Xanthi, not Zanthi")

[@loveofinquiry8067]

What about her Mother?

[@washcloud]

...Greek-Orthodox Christian of northern Epirus (ex-Greek / modern day Albania). Her heritage is so interestingly intertwined with religions, spoken languages, citizenships and ethnicities...

[@dayanbalevski4446]

The fact is that the region that is known as "Aegean Macaedonia and Thrace" was populated by an overwhelming majority of Bulgarians, before the war... That is the reason Bulgaria sided with the Germans, because it was the only way they could recover territories lost before the Ottoman Empire, where the populations were primarily Bulgarians and spoke Bulgarian... An extension of this is also North Macedonia. Ibrahim was born a Bulgarian child in a Muslim Bulgarian family, in Aegean Thrace, which is now in modern Greece. Being a greek citizen does not determine your actually ethnic background, there are ethnic Turks, Bulgarians, and others in Greece, who are Greek citizens, but not ethnic Greeks.

[@atorishaq9761]

If she lived with her father didn't she know about his life or where he came from or hasnt he told her about his life abit she doesn't even know if he was in army all fathers tell story's about there life's and what they've been through to there kids and grandchildren it becomes like a story from a book her story is abit odd 🤔 especially knowing it from strangers.

[@roberthudson1959]

Not necessarily. My stepfather told a friend of mine more about his military service during one dinner than he told me in 35 years. Fortunately, I was also at that dinner table.

[@nicolad8822]

He moved to a new continent, a completely different world, one which required quick assimilation. My guess is he found it easier not to visit the past, especially as we see in another part of this programme about his first wife and child.

[@sct4040]

Perhaps he was ashamed of being in prison for stealing while in the army. Probably by court martial ?

[@m0t0b33]

here's the thing about some families: not all of them are open books about the past. Some don't know it themselves, some are hiding things on purpose. In my family there are lot of unknowns from both sides of it, and whenever I inquired about them, the subject would change; I only learned my maternal grandma's parents names when I had to copy her death certificate for a contract. And I never knew my paternal grandfather, nor am I sure of his first name or origins. It kinda makes me believe that both sides are hiding something either political or just downright shameful. So yeah, it is completely believable that someone might want to take periods of their life to the grave.

[@sarge4455]

Dad was old

[@washcloud]

Papa was a rolling stone

[@Aquarian55]

I wonder how her father feels her promoting Greek ' independence ' or American control i call it.

[@keremgurman6926]

Muslim Bulgarians are actually Turks. They are actually Ottoman Turks who did not leave Bulgaria after the Balkan Wars So she is half a Turk and half a Greek. Her whole father's side is Turkish!

[@electra1920]

Are Bulgarians Turkish? You are to be arrested

[@fff5081]

This is not true. Some Muslim Bulgarians consider themselves Turks, some Bulgarians, some Pomak.

[@BalkanMode]

Not true. There are Turks and Pomaks. Rita Wilson’s father seems to have been an ethnic Turk. On the other hand many Pomaks who emigrated to Turkey had to learn to speak Turkish after their arrival. Just like Albanians and Bosnians.

[@keremgurman6926]

​@@BalkanMode Maybe.. Who knows... and who cares...

[@keivanshahrokhi8346]

No Kerem. Many families converted for various reasons. One big one was to avoid paying the jizieh tax. Anther was simply upward mobility. You could get further ahead in the empire if you were a Muslim.

[@okandoner9459]

Those are all turkish namens ❤

[@washcloud]

...while surnames as "Ibrahimov" are...................?

[@fabigrossi2976]

Plastic bottles? Definitely not. 😉

[@eh1702]

I wonder what the siphon bottles were for? Stealing fuel? Making hooch?

[@elenak5232]

"Xanthi infantry battalion",we heard. Xanthi was under bulgarian occupation from 1941 to the end of war. Τhe whole region was granted to Bulgaria by their everlasting allies,the Germans. So were several other regions of north east of Greece. The whole country was under triple occupation. German, Italian, Bulgarian. People escaped from the Bulgarian occupied territories to go to the " free land" which was the German occupied ones. Such freedom. Not only, the Bulgarians occupied the land they also annexed it to Bulgaria and of course registered brands new catalogues and changed all names. So, what are we talking about??

[@rockykrass7079]

Ibrahimi - Albanian surname Ibrahimoff - Slavic so you are not a Slavic or Greek family

[@washcloud]

And you drew this conclusion from just a surname? Applause for you Sherlock.

[@kimphilby7999]

Reading the comments,one can understand why the Balcan nations have "strong feelings" between them.... Specially the wrongdoers,Turkey and Bulgaria,have the most unacceptable demands from their neighbours.

[@Bizmyurt]

Now it is clear that he was TÛRK as it is officially stated in the document and belive me bulgarians do not state that for a penny if he wasn't. If he was pomak they would say that or probably just bulgar!

[@findik7452]

The cousins speek turkish… interesting family… the names sound like kazak turk names

[@jimanast3593]

That's what I asked (Pomak or Turkish) in the comment section of the other video, where the relatives speak. Thank you!

[@washcloud]

@@jimanast3593 Pomaks speak both their language AND Turkish.

[@nifli2127]

Rita’s mother original Albanian,father original müslim Turkish.

[@washcloud]

Your father = original loser :p

[@corpi8784]

Pomaks or ethnic Turks ? Probably Pomaks

[@Lullubekatsas]

Propably Pomak.Islamized Slavic lokal people.But because of beeing muslim it is more common to be called Turkish.

[@tycobb2580]

the way she's crying you'd think he's going to prison now

[@Davidschannel76]

She was embarrassed and angry that he never told the truth

[@trimule]

Well, if I found out that my father was in the army of an ally of the Nazis and was thrown out to serve time for common theft and was later considered by the police to be a "party boy who runs with a bad crowd"................

[@forlisac1]

Yes. It’s the ability to feel pain for someone else (her father) or a situation - even if it is not occurring at the moment.

[@AdultThirdCultureKid1971]

@@Davidschannel76 Or maybe her father couldn't tell her the truth precisely because it was painful.

[@cherrylane79]

If she didn't know, it's new to her.

[@rockykrass7079]

after the Ottomans left, whatever crime the Greek Slavs committed, we paid the penalty even though I had done nothing, this continues even today in the 21st century, where the Arvanitas do not have Albanian language schools in the Greek state, they do not have the right to the flag or language, that's why their names change, and thus lose their Identity and make them Greek.

[@areh4159]

Right Greece is the worst in Europe

[@Ballo-or4tz]

Her father is turkish and not greek or bulgarian. He belonged to the Turkish minority in Greece.

[@KeyhanHadjari]

The names of his father and his siblings point that he was from Turkic ethnicity. His last name is Russian sounding a little, so could he have been from Caucasus?

[@Deniz-gz4sr]

Pomak

[@KeyhanHadjari]

@@Deniz-gz4sr What is that?

[@krassito]

​@@KeyhanHadjari A Bulgarian Muslim

[@Aquarian55]

The ov or off was forced on Muslim people so they sound Bulgarian

[@Bizmyurt]

What a shameless person denying and trying to hide her origin!

[@X_x_kingfisher_x_X]

Nice to know that Rita Wilson has Muslim genes.❤❤

[@leonardbakers]

Wish they'd asked her about her trips to Epstein Island.

[@dimitrisorestis2983]

One thing is for sure,her husband went to a death camp recently

[@Look_What_You_Did]

No idea who this woman is... Didn't think it was possible but I care even less after the video.

[@ruthietoothie68]

Rita Wilson is the wife of Tom Hanks. I do hope you know who he isF least?

[@teacherlisa163]

She is an incredible actress, singer, and the wife of actor, Tom Hanks. They have been married many years after meeting on set for a few roles. They are a very kind and stable couple in Hollywood which says a lot for their devotion and marriage vows. Take notice. You don't see too many couples like them anymore.

[@Look_What_You_Did]

@@ruthietoothie68 Yes he was in that Canadian music video 30 years ago. Why?

[@garywagner2466]

Your ignorance is no one’s fault but your own.

[@fabigrossi2976]

Do you think anybody cares about your opinion?