Joe Manganiello recounted his great-grandmother's harrowing escape from the Armenian Genocide for the PBS series Finding Your Roots.
Airing on Tuesday February 7 at 8 p.m. ET, the jaw-dropping show – which recently told Edward Norton that his 12th great-grandmother was Pocahontas – also reveals that Manganiello is descended from slaves.
In an exclusive video shared with People, Manganiello detailed the heartbreaking survival story of how his great-grandmother fled from Armenia in 1915 after witnessing the murder of her husband and seven children.
He said: 'The Turks came into her home in 1915 under the guise of World War I and tried to enact the genocide that they had begun.
'They shot her husband dead, shot her. She laid on the ground, pretended that she was dead while seven other gunshots that went off, which were...her seven children.'
Harrowing: Joe Manganiello recounted his great-grandmother's harrowing escape from the Armenian Genocide for the PBS series Finding Your Roots
Manganiello's great-grandmother played dead on the ground until the Turks left her home.
The True Blood alum explained: 'She laid there unmoving and the Turks left the house and left the eighth child, who was an infant in the crib, to starve to death, which is just the way that they did business.'
Joe went on to detail how his great-grandmother 'strapped the baby onto her back and escaped the town.'
But she narrowly evaded the horrifying fate of a 'death march,' which Manganiello described.
'They would just handcuff, chain the Armenians together and march them out to the desert, and release the Kurds, give them military coats, horses and guns, to then go do what they wanted with their mortal enemies, the Armenians.
'She escaped that,' the actor said. 'Snuck past, got to the Euphrates river with the baby on her back, swam across the river, and when she got to the other side, the baby had drowned.'
Manganiello added that his great-grandmother 'had a bullet in her still' and 'lived in a cave with other refugees until she was picked up by German military.'
Manganiello's great-grandmother eventually became pregnant in the military camp by a German officer and 'gave birth to a very blonde, half-German child.'
Heartbreaking: In an exclusive video shared with People , Manganiello detailed the heartbreaking survival story of how his great-grandmother fled from Armenia in 1915 after witnessing the murder of her husband and seven children
One of the best: The show's host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., declared to Rolling Stone, 'If I have a short list of all-time greatest hits, Joe Manganiello’s paternal ancestry is on that list'
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Magic Mike star – who is married to the stunning Sofia Vergara, 50 – opened up about what drove him to go on Finding Your Roots and described the powerful experience of shining a light on his family tree.
He said: 'I had known since I was a kid about the Armenian genocide survivor story and that there was this German soldier who was my great-grandfather.
'For the past ten years, I’d been trying to get on a genealogy show to find out who that German was. I always got no.
'And about two years ago, we got a yes from Finding Your Roots because they felt that technology had gotten to the place where they might be able to make some headway.'
The show's host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., declared to Rolling Stone: 'If I have a short list of all-time greatest hits, Joe Manganiello’s paternal ancestry is on that list.'
Finding Your Roots uncovered that the German officer who impregnated Manganiello's great-grandmother was named Karl Wilhelm Beutinger.
Beutinger eventually returned to his family in Germany, where one of his sons would grow up to become a Nazi SS officer.
Speaking about the reveal, Joe told Rolling Stone: 'You have to take the good with the bad. And there’s some of that with history. I think there’s a tendency to say, ‘I’m so proud that my ancestors were on the right side of history,’ but that’s not you — that’s somebody else.
Bombshell revelations: The True Blood alum – who is married to Sofia Vergara, 50 – also learned that he was descended from a German Officer with strong Nazi ties
Finding his roots: Airing on Tuesday February 7 at 8 p.m. ET, the jaw-dropping show also reveals that Manganiello is descended from slaves
And that wasn't the only bombshell, as the show discovered that Joe's DNA did not match any individual with the surname of Manganiello.
'It was a real shock,' Joe told Rolling Stone. 'To find out that your last name isn’t really your last name, and that I was related to zero percent of the world’s Manganiello’s is… wow.'
Finding Your Roots learned that the Manganiello's fifth great-grandfather was an African slave named Plato Turner who eventually became a free man and fought in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
'I’m descended from survivors,' said Joe. 'To raise a child in a camp that’s blonde when no one Armenian is blonde, without a father, and to come to the United States and raise that child under the scrutiny of other adults around? That’s tough.
'To come from West Africa in chains, on a ship, and to come to the United States and earn your freedom...'
The Justice League star went on to discuss how these revelations affected his family, specifically his father.
'I don’t know,' he said. 'My father and I… we’re not… my father and I don’t talk, so I can’t speak to that.
'For me, it’s fascinating — to know what I am, to be able to explore ground zero. I love history and storytelling, and it’s part of the reason why I picked my profession. I’m grateful.'
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