Holocaust Memorial Antiques Roadshow


Holocaust Memorial

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Regular viewers of the roadshow

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will know we've made special programmes

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around the theme of remembrance in the past.

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Tonight, we're telling a different story.

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Not of the lives of British servicemen and women,

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but of those whose lives were shattered by the Holocaust.

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And as the country prepares to mark Holocaust Memorial Day,

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we're bringing together some of those people,

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and others, who still live with the consequences

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of that most dreadful of times.

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And our venue for today,

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for what will no doubt be an emotional gathering,

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is the very impressive Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

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They will share with us

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their memories and keepsakes of the Holocaust.

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Many were just children

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during Hitler's tyranny.

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Welcome to this special edition of the Antiques Roadshow,

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in which, I believe, you'll hear the most powerful and moving stories

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we've ever told.

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Later this year, work will begin on an important project

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next to the Houses of Parliament.

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A British national memorial

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will be built here in this park to honour those

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who died in the Holocaust

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and those who survived and came to Britain

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and made it their home.

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During the Second World War,

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the Nazis and their collaborators killed around six million Jews.

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The deadliest genocide in history

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also included anyone who didn't fit Hitler's ideal of Aryan perfection,

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those with mental and physical disabilities,

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Roma and gay people among them.

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Over the last year,

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the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation,

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set up by the Government,

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has recorded British survivors telling their stories

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while they still can.

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This archive of interviews,

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conducted by broadcaster Natasha Kaplinsky,

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will form an important part of the education centre,

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so later generations can see what happens

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when hatred is allowed to prevail.

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All those who participated were invited to join us

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for this recording of the Antiques Roadshow

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in the heart of London,

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at which we invited them to bring

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what precious objects they have from this time,

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to meet me and four of our experts -

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Paul Atterbury,

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Rupert Maas,

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Mark Smith

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and John Benjamin.

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This being the Antiques Roadshow, we could put a value on items -

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we're not going to,

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because the things we'll be looking at

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are beyond any commercial value.

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They are emotionally and historically priceless,

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as Rupert Maas has been finding out,

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looking at some extraordinary sketches.

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Now, Judith Kerr, your name will be familiar to millions of people,

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of course, for your famous children's book,

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The Tiger Who Came To Tea, and the Mog series,

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which all my children, at least, have read.

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But you're less familiar for these,

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well, extraordinary two very early drawings

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which you did before you were nine, is that right? In Berlin?

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Yes, and the extraordinary thing is that when we had to leave

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in a great rush, because of Hitler,

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my mum, with all the other things she had to think about,

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decided to pack those,

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when she might have packed something more useful.

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And this one is of the central railway station in Berlin.

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-Yes.

-With the grocer's stall and the tram.

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-Yes.

-And this one, of the local playground, I suppose.

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I think it was a fair, I think it was a special occasion.

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Now, very shortly after this time, Hitler comes to power,

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it's the burning of the Reichstag, the writing's on the wall.

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-Yes.

-And your father was a very famous theatre critic, wasn't he?

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-Yes.

-And an outspoken critic of the Nazis, so you had to get out.

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Yes. All that winter, before we left Germany,

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people were being murdered in the streets,

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and my father used to do a broadcast once a week

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in which he probably insulted Hitler and made fun of him,

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as he always did, and then come back through the Berlin streets,

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and this was thought so dangerous

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that the radio company used to send a car with an armed bodyguard

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to pick him up.

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So there's absolutely no doubt about what would have happened

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had he stayed in Berlin after the election.

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He would've been picked up and murdered.

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Probably even before the elections.

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He left about two weeks before.

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So, he went separately?

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-Oh, yes...

-Much safer.

-He went immediately.

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And then my mum had this very short time,

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I think about ten days,

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in which to organise everything...

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And you got out, what, by train?

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Well, yes. About five o'clock in the morning,

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we took a little train

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and it went across the frontier to Zurich

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on 4th March 1933.

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The elections which brought Hitler to power were on 5th March.

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And on the morning of 6th March,

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they came to our house to demand all our passports.

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-Crikey.

-So my entire life, my 93 years,

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is due to that, and I can never forget that.

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-Two days?

-Two days.

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But weren't you at all afraid?

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No, I think I was too stupid.

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I didn't understand what was happening.

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Then we went to Paris, which was wonderful.

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I loved it. Erm...

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We were living in this grotty flat, high up in Paris,

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and my father and I were looking out of the window

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and we could see all the lights of Paris,

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and apparently I said to him,

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"Isn't it lovely being a refugee?"

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LAUGHTER

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Which must have cheered him up.

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Awfully big adventure. And you wrote later what you call a novel,

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which was really autobiographical, wasn't it?

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-Yes.

-Of your adventures on that occasion,

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called When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

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Yes, that's right.

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-And this was an illustration for the American edition.

-Yes.

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-So this is you and your brother.

-Yes.

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-And your father and your mother, is that right?

-Yes, yes.

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It's quite like us.

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Of course, as I wrote it,

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I realised, far more than I had realised before,

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how incredibly protective my parents had been.

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My mother had to cope with everything,

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and it was hard for her,

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and she attempted suicide a couple of times.

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And I suddenly thought, having children myself, you know,

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how would I act in those circumstances?

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And not as well, I think.

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But I can tell you that millions of children have read your books

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and learned about this awful period in European history

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and learned a lot about human nature and family life from your books.

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So perhaps you have done a very good thing after all.

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Well, that would be good.

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For those who stayed, Hitler's Nazis increased their persecution.

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Jews had their rights and livelihoods removed.

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But things were about to get much worse.

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November 1938.

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Kristallnacht. It's an infamous night.

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The turning point when the Nazi party

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made its statement to the world,

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that it was out to eradicate the world of Jewish people.

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Kristallnacht itself gets its name

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from the fact that shop windows were broken,

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the Jewish star and the "J" in yellow

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were painted on all of the buildings.

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The synagogues were destroyed,

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and the streets were so full of glass afterwards

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-that it crunched in the glass, which is really...

-Yeah.

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..the concept of Kristallnacht.

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-And you were there.

-Yes.

-You were a witness that night.

-Yes.

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I remember, although I was only six-and-a-half at that time,

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being rounded up with my parents and all the other Jews in our area

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and being marched through the town,

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and people standing on the sidewalk, jeering and shouting.

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I can't actually remember very much more

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until we got to the hall,

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where we were kept without food and water for about 12, 15 hours.

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And from that moment on,

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my mother made every effort to get us out of Germany.

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Unfortunately, my father was arrested by the Gestapo

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the next night and taken to a concentration camp,

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where he was kept till June 1939,

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and would be very fortunate and lucky

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to get a visa to the UK on 29th August,

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which was cutting it a little bit fine.

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It was. Yes.

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Now, who is this little chap here?

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Yes. This little chap is my first cousin, Rolf,

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who was living with his parents and his grandparents...

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-Yes.

-..in a place called Arnsberg,

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where the whole family came from.

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I met him for the last time in the end of 1938,

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which was, in fact,

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the last time I saw any of my family from over there.

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What happened to Rolf?

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Well, Rolf and his cousins

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and his parents and grandparents

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were eventually rounded up

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and taken by train to Auschwitz.

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The fathers were sent away to work.

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The mothers and the children

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were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

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And we know that Rolf and his mother and his cousins

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were sent straightaway to the gas chambers.

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I think this shows more than anything

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that the Nazis were out to kill

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everybody who was Jewish,

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because this is the T-shirt of a very small...

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It was Rolf's T-shirt.

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-It's just a lad, isn't it, really?

-Yeah.

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And to actually have a concept

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and a regime

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which is out there

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to destroy everything,

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I think something like this T-shirt is so poignant,

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because it says it's everybody.

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Yeah, and that's the terrible part about it.

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You know, they didn't discriminate between kids and grown-ups.

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It would've been bad enough just the grown-ups,

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but to include the kids as well...

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-It really was...

-Yeah.

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-..a...

-Yeah.

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..operation to remove everybody.

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To annihilate a race, basically.

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Yes. I understand that we have some other people with us today

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who also lived through these experiences.

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I...I've actually gone silent there,

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because that is such a poignant visual sign

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of the 20th-century's darkest hour,

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and I never, ever thought I would see three people

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hold up three real stars that they were issued with...

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is an incredibly humbling moment.

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Thank you so much for bringing them along.

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Of all the things I've seen today, I think this, for me,

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is the most chilling, because it's a children's game,

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but it's teaching children to hate.

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It's called Jews Out.

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Ben, you brought it along from the Wiener Library,

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which is Britain's Holocaust archive.

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It's a horrifying thing, isn't it?

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It is a very horrifying thing

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and, as you say, it's because it's directed at children

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and it's about indoctrinating children into this view of Jews

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as something pestilential and unwanted and to be got rid of.

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And these characters are meant to symbolise the Jews, here,

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these horrible caricatures...

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-That's right.

-..in their homes and businesses.

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And the object is...

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How does it work? It's to round them up?

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It's to round them up. So you roll dice and these figures,

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which represent the sort of German policemen,

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go marching round the town

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and when they land on the circles where the yellow cones are,

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the cones actually then sit on top of the hats of the policeman

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and are brought back to what's called the collection point,

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or the Sammel-Platz,

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and then you set out to get another one,

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and it's a sort of race to be the first to round up six.

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And then when you get six, is it off to Palestine?

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-As it says here?

-Notionally, for the Jews you've rounded up,

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they are sent away to Palestine.

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And this was created when, this game?

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This was created in 1938,

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and it was not produced by the Nazi party,

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but was a commercial undertaking, so made for profit.

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-Was it popular?

-I believe it was very popular.

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It was a commercial success, although now it's a great rarity.

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And it's so important not to forget that things like this existed.

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Yes, that's right.

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Some people nowadays try to deny that the Holocaust ever happened,

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and the whole purpose of our collection

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is to make sure that those suggestions will always fail,

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because we have the evidence in front of us.

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Objects can be a lightning rod into the past.

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Some of our other guests also brought with them items

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which helped tell their family's story.

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This silver Judaica comes from Beregovo,

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a town in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

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And in April 1944,

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my grandmother Bella

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wrapped them and buried them in the family garden

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when they were being rounded up to be deported to Auschwitz.

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And, amazingly,

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not only did my grandmother survive and return home,

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but also my father Hugo, who was then just 13 years old,

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survived the selection at Auschwitz by pretending to be 18

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and survived two death marches with his father, Geza.

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Geza died a few days after they were liberated.

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And my grandmother managed to get these items out to my father

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and they're still used in our family home,

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and my mother still uses these candlesticks

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whenever we gather together for Shabbat.

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To know that we're still continuing traditions

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that the Nazis, of course, intended to have wiped out

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is very important to me.

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Well, I've brought my grandfather's watch.

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It was, for a while, the only thing that he owned in the world.

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He was forced to flee Berlin.

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He put every single bit of currency he had into it,

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because he saw it as his ticket out of Berlin and out of Germany.

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His mother was not able to accompany him when he fled,

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and he found out subsequently that she was killed in Auschwitz.

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He seeked refuge in England

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and, originally, he was interned as an enemy alien,

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because there wasn't sort of that implicit understanding

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that these people were refugees at that point.

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They were given the opportunity to volunteer to go on a ship

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called the Dunera, which was bound for Canada.

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The only way that he was able to keep the watch

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when they boarded the ship was he concealed in his flies.

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And, in fact, the ship wasn't bound for Canada at all,

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it was heading to Australia.

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And when he arrived, he was completely alone in the world.

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He was round about my age

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and effectively an orphan who'd had to flee his homeland.

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When I look at this watch,

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it's possibly the entire family history

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sort of condensed into this one artefact.

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So, for the family and for me, it's incredibly precious.

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In 1938, as borders and possible escape routes for Jewish people

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began to slam shut,

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British Jews, Quakers and other aid groups,

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with the support of the UK Government,

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set up a rescue plan.

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So many people needed saving

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it was decided to take only the children,

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and some 10,000 youngsters were eventually brought to safety here.

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Desperate parents handed over their little ones,

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not knowing if they would ever see them again.

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"Save one life, save the world" -

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which is from the Jewish Talmud, the book of law.

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This is a ring beyond all rings, I think it's true to say.

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It's a gold hoop ring,

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and I would like you to tell me who it belonged to

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and that person's story.

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Well, it belonged to my father, Nicholas Winton,

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and he was given it in 1988.

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It was a thank-you from a group of people

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who came to call him their honorary father,

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and they gave it to him for something he did in 1939,

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50 years earlier.

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Let's reel this back to 1938.

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Well, in 1938, my father was a 29-year-old stockbroker

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and he was due to go skiing with a friend of his, Martin Blake.

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A week before they were due to go,

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he got a phone call from Martin saying,

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"The holiday's off, I'm in Prague.

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"I think you should come out and see what I'm doing."

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And because my father was very aware of what was going on in Europe,

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with Hitler invading Austria,

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he understood very clearly that Prague was a place

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where there were many thousands of refugees looking for a way out,

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but they couldn't get a country to take them in.

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He felt that people were trying to help the adults,

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but no-one was focusing on the children.

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And when he came back to England, he said,

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"I'm going to go to the British Government and ask for permission

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"to bring in unaccompanied children from Czechoslovakia,"

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because, yes, they'd given permission

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-for Germany and Austrian children...

-What was their reaction here?

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Well, he was told that they wouldn't like it,

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that they wouldn't want a separate application.

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His view was, "I'm going to have a go."

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And so he went into the Home Office and asked for permission

0:18:520:18:55

and they said, "Sure. No problem.

0:18:550:18:57

"Two conditions - one, that you find a foster family for each child

0:18:570:19:01

"for the duration of the problems, however long that may be,"

0:19:010:19:05

and the second was a £50 guarantee

0:19:050:19:07

that would pay for their repatriation when it was safe.

0:19:070:19:10

-A lot of money at that time.

-About £2,500 today.

-£50.

0:19:100:19:14

So, he managed to arrange for several hundred,

0:19:140:19:19

I believe, wasn't it?

0:19:190:19:20

Can you give me the number, the total number?

0:19:200:19:23

Well, the number that we have on the reports is 669.

0:19:230:19:26

We know that's not entirely accurate.

0:19:260:19:28

I've met some who came on the trains but who weren't on the reports.

0:19:280:19:32

-669, or thereabouts.

-Hmm.

0:19:320:19:34

Children, to be on these trains to freedom, to safety, to security,

0:19:340:19:41

all through what your father did.

0:19:410:19:43

But he wasn't made public

0:19:430:19:45

until the time that the ring itself was presented to him, wasn't it,

0:19:450:19:50

by a number of the children of the Kindertransport

0:19:500:19:53

that he'd actually saved,

0:19:530:19:55

-is that correct?

-That's right. Yes.

0:19:550:19:58

I think that it's worthwhile pointing out

0:19:580:20:01

that here, we have four people, on this extraordinary day,

0:20:010:20:06

who were on the Kindertransport who your father actively saved.

0:20:060:20:11

And why that's extraordinary in itself is because this lady here

0:20:110:20:16

and this lady here have never met.

0:20:160:20:19

This is the first time you've both met, is that correct?

0:20:190:20:21

-Yes.

-Yes.

-What do you think about that?

0:20:210:20:24

I felt I've made a new friend.

0:20:240:20:27

-Yes.

-I can't be more complimentary than that.

0:20:270:20:32

And I owe your...

0:20:320:20:34

my life to your father.

0:20:340:20:37

-Mm.

-Thank you very much indeed.

0:20:370:20:39

Thank you.

0:20:390:20:41

Poland was invaded in 1939,

0:20:450:20:48

leading to the Nazi Final Solution to the Jewish question...

0:20:480:20:52

..in which some three million Polish Jews were murdered.

0:20:530:20:57

As death camps were built,

0:20:570:20:59

some managed to escape to neighbouring countries,

0:20:590:21:02

but nowhere was safe for long.

0:21:020:21:05

Now, Joan, I'm looking at an old suitcase, a gold coin,

0:21:070:21:11

a range of photographs of different periods.

0:21:110:21:14

Now, surely, that is you.

0:21:140:21:16

Yeah. Aren't I gorgeous?

0:21:160:21:18

Wonderful. I'd recognise you anywhere.

0:21:180:21:20

SHE LAUGHS

0:21:200:21:22

Yeah! Yeah, that was me in Paris.

0:21:220:21:24

I was about 18 months old there.

0:21:240:21:27

This is July 1942.

0:21:270:21:30

My parents were Polish Jews,

0:21:300:21:32

and there was the first big round-up of women and children

0:21:320:21:35

of Polish origin.

0:21:350:21:37

So, you fled Paris.

0:21:370:21:38

-Mm.

-As a family?

0:21:380:21:40

Yes. Well, we had parallel journeys.

0:21:400:21:43

So we weren't together all that much.

0:21:430:21:45

My father had nearly been rounded up in 1941, in June '41,

0:21:450:21:51

and he had escaped down into Spain.

0:21:510:21:55

He sent the guide back for us, and we didn't turn up,

0:21:550:21:59

and he assumed we had gone.

0:21:590:22:00

So, he assumed his family was dead?

0:22:000:22:03

Yes.

0:22:030:22:04

So, we've got this gold coin. Very striking it is.

0:22:040:22:07

-Tell me about it.

-It was in my father's effects when he died.

0:22:070:22:11

The reason it's so thin is that it would've been hidden in a heel,

0:22:110:22:16

you know? And he must've kept that as a security blanket.

0:22:160:22:20

But he never mentioned it.

0:22:200:22:22

It was only after he died...

0:22:220:22:24

Well, it's an Austro-Hungarian coin.

0:22:240:22:26

Gold is international.

0:22:260:22:28

-Yeah.

-What will always buy you out of trouble is a bit of gold.

0:22:280:22:31

-Yes.

-And so you take it with you.

-Yes.

0:22:310:22:34

And so you and your sister and your mother

0:22:340:22:37

then, in a sense, set off on the same journey, don't you?

0:22:370:22:40

-Yes.

-By that time,

0:22:400:22:42

the British Government, with a department called MI9,

0:22:420:22:46

had developed escape lines

0:22:460:22:48

that went from the Netherlands through Belgium,

0:22:480:22:51

right through France, across the Pyrenees,

0:22:510:22:53

so you are fed into an established escape system.

0:22:530:22:56

-I believe so.

-And I think... Did you travel with other people?

0:22:560:22:59

Yes, because we were two young children,

0:22:590:23:03

the airmen would carry us on their shoulders.

0:23:030:23:06

We were in the mountains for several nights, apparently.

0:23:060:23:09

And we were crying and hungry, and the guide did say to my mother,

0:23:090:23:13

"If you can't shut them up, you've got to suffocate them."

0:23:130:23:18

So it was a dangerous journey,

0:23:180:23:20

because the Nazis were already in the mountains.

0:23:200:23:24

To us, it's an inconceivable threat.

0:23:240:23:26

And yet it's something I've heard many times.

0:23:260:23:29

-Mm.

-Because the risks were too great.

0:23:290:23:31

-You know, many people did slip and fall and break a leg.

-Yes.

0:23:310:23:36

And if they were lucky, someone shot them.

0:23:360:23:39

-Yes.

-If not, they were left.

-It's unbelievable.

-Yeah.

0:23:390:23:42

But you make it through.

0:23:420:23:44

-Yes.

-And then what happened?

0:23:440:23:46

Well, the Americans had sent a rescue mission for the children

0:23:460:23:51

like my sister, myself and others who had escaped.

0:23:510:23:54

But the visas were only for children,

0:23:540:23:57

so they wouldn't take adults.

0:23:570:24:00

The expectation was that Spain was going to fall,

0:24:000:24:03

-and my mother gave us up...

-So, hang on. So, at that point...

0:24:030:24:07

-Mm?

-..your family is just torn apart?

0:24:070:24:09

-Torn apart, completely, yes. Yes.

-It's this thing about...

0:24:090:24:13

what we can't grasp without that experience is the sense of

0:24:130:24:17

total destruction of family, of background and of course,

0:24:170:24:21

presumably, most of your relatives had been killed?

0:24:210:24:25

Yeah. Both sets of grandparents, who were in Poland,

0:24:250:24:28

died in the death camps,

0:24:280:24:30

not the concentration camps, the death camps.

0:24:300:24:33

My mother was one of eight adult...

0:24:330:24:37

So I had cousins and aunts

0:24:370:24:39

and uncles, and they were completely wiped out.

0:24:390:24:44

How did you come to terms with that?

0:24:460:24:48

I mean, how are you now?

0:24:480:24:50

It's in my shadow, and you never know

0:24:500:24:52

when it's going to tap you on the shoulder.

0:24:520:24:55

It's there always in your shadow.

0:24:550:24:58

It's also got to be in our shadow.

0:24:580:25:01

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you, Paul. Thank you.

0:25:010:25:03

Today's large gathering was for those who'd recorded testimony

0:25:060:25:10

for the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation,

0:25:100:25:12

their families and special guests,

0:25:120:25:15

including Britain's Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis.

0:25:150:25:18

Through this project, your voices WILL always be heard

0:25:180:25:22

for generations to come.

0:25:220:25:24

Natasha Kaplinsky, who conducted the interviews with survivors,

0:25:260:25:29

had her own personal reasons for being involved.

0:25:290:25:32

Natasha, your connection with all this began,

0:25:320:25:35

I remember it so well when we worked in the newsroom together,

0:25:350:25:38

and you did a Who Do You Think You Are? for the BBC,

0:25:380:25:40

and you found out about your Jewish ancestry,

0:25:400:25:43

and it was pretty harrowing.

0:25:430:25:44

It was a brutal experience.

0:25:440:25:46

I mean, it was an amazing experience,

0:25:460:25:47

but the Who Do You Think You Are? team took me to Belarus,

0:25:470:25:50

where I discovered the most awful stories about my father's family

0:25:500:25:54

and what had happened to them,

0:25:540:25:56

and how many of them had been murdered by the Nazis,

0:25:560:25:59

and as a consequence of that programme, many years later,

0:25:590:26:02

I was contacted by the Prime Minister's Holocaust Commission

0:26:020:26:05

to invite me to be one of the commissioners,

0:26:050:26:08

and out of the commission came one of the findings,

0:26:080:26:11

a key finding, which was we DID need to record survivor testimony,

0:26:110:26:15

and I volunteered for that,

0:26:150:26:17

and here we are now with 112 survivor testimonies taken.

0:26:170:26:21

-And so important to do it before it's too late.

-That is the point.

0:26:210:26:25

We have lost a number of people who I've already interviewed.

0:26:250:26:28

But it's been a release for a lot of people.

0:26:280:26:31

I think that's been a really big part of this today

0:26:310:26:34

and part of why they wanted to leave their testimony,

0:26:340:26:37

so that they CAN make a difference,

0:26:370:26:39

so that their suffering hasn't been in vain,

0:26:390:26:41

and that we and the generations that follow us can learn

0:26:410:26:45

from what they have been through.

0:26:450:26:47

Natasha, I know they are all so grateful to you

0:26:470:26:49

for taking their testimony. I think you've done a remarkable thing.

0:26:490:26:52

Well, thank you. It's been a huge honour to meet all of them,

0:26:520:26:55

but we've all cried thousands of tears.

0:26:550:26:58

I'm sure you have.

0:26:580:26:59

By 1942, over 20 main Nazi concentration camps

0:27:050:27:09

were in operation,

0:27:090:27:11

of which four were extermination camps, where an estimated

0:27:110:27:15

three million Jews were killed in the gas chambers.

0:27:150:27:18

The most notorious of all the death camps was Auschwitz.

0:27:180:27:22

One young man who was liberated from there

0:27:220:27:25

chose to keep one of the most hated symbols of the camps.

0:27:250:27:29

There's nothing that brings to mind more instantly

0:27:300:27:34

the concentration camps than the stripes on these trousers.

0:27:340:27:38

-Absolutely.

-And these belonged to your husband, Joe.

0:27:380:27:41

Yes, these were the ones he was actually liberated in.

0:27:410:27:45

-From Auschwitz.

-From Auschwitz.

0:27:450:27:48

How old was Joe when he went to Auschwitz?

0:27:480:27:52

17. And he was in there for four years.

0:27:520:27:55

He was 21 when he was liberated.

0:27:550:27:58

And he weighed just 5st then, is that right?

0:27:580:28:01

He weighed 5st.

0:28:010:28:03

The reason Joe ended up in Auschwitz was that he...

0:28:030:28:07

-he gave himself up, didn't he?

-Yes, he did.

-Tell me about that.

0:28:070:28:11

His sister was taken to a concentration camp,

0:28:110:28:16

and when he found out where she was,

0:28:160:28:21

he actually went there and gave himself up,

0:28:210:28:25

because he wanted to look after her.

0:28:250:28:27

And part of the way he survived at Auschwitz was through boxing.

0:28:270:28:30

How did he start?

0:28:300:28:32

When he was a youngster,

0:28:320:28:33

he was always interested in boxing and sports,

0:28:330:28:38

and he boxed for the Germans

0:28:380:28:41

because they offered him extra bread,

0:28:410:28:44

and he wanted to give that to his sister.

0:28:440:28:47

But then she had an illness and...

0:28:470:28:52

-..she died.

-And how old was she when she died?

0:28:530:28:56

She was 16.

0:28:560:28:58

Gosh.

0:28:580:28:59

-Can I pick these up?

-Yes, of course.

0:29:000:29:03

I have to say, just touching these is...

0:29:050:29:09

is a very strange sensation.

0:29:090:29:11

-Yes.

-Now, what's interesting is that Joe wanted to keep them.

0:29:110:29:14

Because I can imagine other people might have wanted to burn them.

0:29:140:29:16

Yes, I can imagine that.

0:29:160:29:18

But I think they became so much a part of him

0:29:180:29:22

that I don't think he could ever part with them.

0:29:220:29:26

They had to be there.

0:29:260:29:28

I know at one stage you thought about giving these to a museum.

0:29:290:29:32

I did actually take them to a museum,

0:29:320:29:35

and then after about two or three weeks, I became really upset.

0:29:350:29:38

I felt that I'd betrayed my husband, and I felt that

0:29:380:29:45

I'd given part of him away.

0:29:450:29:48

I couldn't...I couldn't...

0:29:490:29:51

..cope with that.

0:29:520:29:54

-And you had to keep them.

-I had to have them back.

0:29:550:29:58

We have a picture here, Cybil.

0:30:000:30:02

-Yes.

-Of his family.

0:30:020:30:04

Yes, of his family.

0:30:040:30:06

So, this is Joe here.

0:30:060:30:08

Yeah, that's him, yes, there.

0:30:080:30:10

And what happened to everyone else in this picture?

0:30:100:30:14

-All gone.

-Everyone else died in the camps?

0:30:140:30:17

-Yes. Except...

-Except for Joe.

-..Joe.

0:30:170:30:20

How do you think the experiences that Joe went through

0:30:220:30:25

in the concentration camp...

0:30:250:30:27

..changed him as a person?

0:30:280:30:30

When I was first married,

0:30:300:30:32

there were quite a few episodes

0:30:320:30:35

where suddenly he would wake up at night absolutely screaming

0:30:350:30:39

and screaming and screaming,

0:30:390:30:42

just reliving some of the terrible things that went on -

0:30:420:30:47

watching people being killed, and the horrors

0:30:470:30:52

that never seemed to leave him.

0:30:520:30:54

But as he got older, he didn't mention it much any more.

0:30:550:30:59

Well, Joe is the only survivor out of this picture.

0:31:010:31:04

-Yes.

-But because he survived...

0:31:040:31:06

..you're here with your family.

0:31:070:31:09

-Absolutely.

-So, your daughter and two grandsons.

-Absolutely.

0:31:090:31:13

And so Joe lives on.

0:31:130:31:16

He will always live on.

0:31:160:31:18

I'm sure.

0:31:190:31:21

When I'm looking at pictures on the roadshow, I tend to

0:31:340:31:37

think of artists in their studios, they've been to art school,

0:31:370:31:40

and they're creating these beautiful things and it's all wonderful

0:31:400:31:43

but, here, we're very forcibly reminded

0:31:430:31:47

that people are compelled to make works of art

0:31:470:31:50

in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

0:31:500:31:53

In this case, a concentration camp, Theresienstadt,

0:31:530:31:57

in the north of the Czech Republic, as it is now,

0:31:570:32:00

what the Germans called Sudetenland,

0:32:000:32:02

and that is where your mother and father,

0:32:020:32:05

in this photograph here, found themselves in the mid-'40s.

0:32:050:32:09

What's most interesting are these extraordinary pictures

0:32:090:32:12

that your father, Erich Lichtblau,

0:32:120:32:15

did whilst he was actually in the camp.

0:32:150:32:18

He made one cartoon every night...

0:32:180:32:21

hidden in the upper bunk bed he had.

0:32:210:32:25

He stole papers from where he worked, and paint.

0:32:250:32:30

He brought them to his bunk bed and he painted what he saw -

0:32:300:32:34

that's what he said when he was criticised,

0:32:340:32:36

because he made it full of humour and empathy.

0:32:360:32:39

-They're cartoons.

-Yeah, he said, "I just painted what I saw."

0:32:390:32:43

But a very dangerous thing to do. I mean, if he'd been

0:32:430:32:46

-caught by the Nazis...

-Exactly.

-..he would have been off to the East...

0:32:460:32:49

Not off to the East, he would have been killed right away.

0:32:490:32:52

-Straight away.

-Yeah, and this is the first, maybe,

0:32:520:32:55

because he shows here the night he arrived at the camp,

0:32:550:32:58

in the evening, and he's with fever and he sits on the floor,

0:32:580:33:02

because there's no free bunk bed, and a man, he looks like a doctor,

0:33:020:33:07

says to him, "What you need is vitamin P," which meant, in German,

0:33:070:33:12

"protection". Yeah, vitamin P.

0:33:120:33:15

But this drawing is a drawing that he did after the experience,

0:33:150:33:19

because he kept coming back to the drawings

0:33:190:33:22

he actually did in the camps,

0:33:220:33:23

and reworking them and reliving that experience

0:33:230:33:26

for the rest of his life,

0:33:260:33:27

almost as a form of therapy, reliving the experience.

0:33:270:33:30

Exactly. This is maybe the third series he did.

0:33:300:33:34

And this is what happened - after he made about 130 pieces like this,

0:33:340:33:40

one day he came to his workplace

0:33:400:33:42

and he found that four of his artist friends disappeared.

0:33:420:33:47

And, so, when he met my mother the same week,

0:33:470:33:49

I don't know, because they were separated in different barracks

0:33:490:33:52

at the same camp, he told her he's going to burn all the pictures,

0:33:520:33:57

and my mother said...

0:33:570:33:59

-No.

-"I forbid. You are not going to do that

0:33:590:34:02

"because if we manage to survive this...

0:34:020:34:05

"..nobody will believe us, what we have been through."

0:34:060:34:09

It's an important record. Here is another one,

0:34:090:34:12

where you've got an old lady picking through a rubbish heap

0:34:120:34:15

for scraps to eat, isn't she? And what does "Konkurenti" mean?

0:34:150:34:18

"Konkurrenz", which means competition.

0:34:180:34:21

Potato peels here,

0:34:210:34:22

and the rats and the birds and the old lady are fighting for the food.

0:34:220:34:27

So, this is another one that he did later.

0:34:270:34:30

-Yeah.

-And the thing was, why did he do them later?

0:34:300:34:34

Well, because... When my mother forbade him to burn them,

0:34:350:34:41

they cut all...all captions, they cut all the words,

0:34:410:34:46

they cut every...

0:34:460:34:47

-This is an original.

-Yeah, and this is the original.

0:34:470:34:50

-Exactly.

-I see.

0:34:500:34:52

By cutting them up, storing them separately,

0:34:520:34:54

you remove the narrative,

0:34:540:34:56

and the Nazis might not realise exactly what he's done.

0:34:560:35:00

They'll see three separate pictures that don't mean anything separately.

0:35:000:35:03

Put them together, you've got the story.

0:35:030:35:05

-The moral of the tale.

-Yeah, and when they survived after the war,

0:35:050:35:08

they went back, they found it and my father, he never stopped doing this.

0:35:080:35:14

The way I see it is they got murdered by the Nazis

0:35:140:35:18

but they kept living another 60 years

0:35:180:35:20

because they were never alive after that.

0:35:200:35:23

So you think that,

0:35:230:35:25

in Theresienstadt, he lost his life?

0:35:250:35:27

Ja, definitely.

0:35:270:35:29

They kept living. I was born after that.

0:35:290:35:31

And they created a life for us,

0:35:310:35:34

but they never lived.

0:35:340:35:36

Many of the survivors attending today's reception

0:35:510:35:53

have brought with them precious items from the Holocaust.

0:35:530:35:57

I was nine years old

0:35:590:36:01

and I weighed 3.5st and I had no hair,

0:36:010:36:04

and we had nothing,

0:36:040:36:05

and, eventually, we were repatriated

0:36:050:36:09

back to where I was born, in Yugoslavia,

0:36:090:36:12

only to find out my whole family was killed.

0:36:120:36:15

And we literally had nothing, and it was my birthday coming up,

0:36:150:36:18

and the doctors gave me six months to live,

0:36:180:36:21

and my grandmother had a gold tooth filling.

0:36:210:36:25

If it was in the front, the Nazis would have taken it,

0:36:250:36:28

but it was a filling in a back tooth,

0:36:280:36:31

so she went to the jeweller and she had this made for me.

0:36:310:36:34

It's a little four-leaf clover,

0:36:340:36:37

and in the back it says "Omama",

0:36:370:36:39

which is Hungarian, means grandmother,

0:36:390:36:42

and 10th January 1947.

0:36:420:36:45

And this I have

0:36:450:36:46

carried with me everywhere.

0:36:460:36:48

This was the most amazing birthday present because we just had nothing,

0:36:480:36:53

except our lives and, of course,

0:36:530:36:54

that is what it's all about, isn't it?

0:36:540:36:57

Well, this is a little teddy bear.

0:37:010:37:04

You might find it difficult to recognise,

0:37:040:37:06

but to me it is very precious because my mother packed it with me

0:37:060:37:11

when I came to England, in a small case.

0:37:110:37:14

It's the only toy that I had before I left Germany.

0:37:140:37:18

The agreement was that the parents could not come along with me.

0:37:180:37:24

Now, this meant, of course,

0:37:240:37:26

that my parents were still subject to the Nazi...

0:37:260:37:30

..this hate of Jews and anything to do with Jews, and, so,

0:37:320:37:38

when, in fact, they got notice that they were going to Auschwitz,

0:37:380:37:43

they decided that they were going to commit suicide.

0:37:430:37:47

Well, I don't know what...

0:37:470:37:49

It must have been terrible for them,

0:37:490:37:52

but I was in such good hands in England that, in fact...

0:37:520:37:57

..when finally I heard,

0:37:590:38:00

it didn't have the impact that it would have done

0:38:000:38:04

if I'd known at the time.

0:38:040:38:06

It's in fact the only toy

0:38:060:38:08

that I have, and that's why it's especially precious to me.

0:38:080:38:13

Most of the survivors of the camps kept nothing from those dark days,

0:38:150:38:20

so even meagre items from the time

0:38:200:38:22

assume a great importance, as Natasha discovered.

0:38:220:38:26

Zahava, your story has stayed with me for all sorts of reasons,

0:38:270:38:32

not least because you were able to keep

0:38:320:38:35

an enormous number of items from that period of your life,

0:38:350:38:38

and you've brought a selection of them with you today.

0:38:380:38:41

How was it that you kept so many things?

0:38:410:38:44

Well, it was my mother who really kept these things, but never,

0:38:440:38:48

never spoke to me about it

0:38:480:38:50

because she didn't want me to look back on what I had gone through,

0:38:500:38:54

and just to try to be positive.

0:38:540:38:57

And these items represent different parts of your journey, don't they?

0:38:570:39:01

-Yes, absolutely.

-Let's start with this. This was a photograph

0:39:010:39:04

-of you and your brother.

-Yeah, that was when he was very young, a baby,

0:39:040:39:08

but he was a very young child when he was given away into hiding.

0:39:080:39:12

Let's talk about this photograph,

0:39:120:39:14

because this possibly was one of the most important things

0:39:140:39:17

-that your mother ever had.

-Absolutely, because, for her,

0:39:170:39:20

because they had given my brother away at the age of 16 months

0:39:200:39:24

into hiding, not knowing whether they'll ever see him again,

0:39:240:39:27

and this little photo my mother received in a bag of raw beans.

0:39:270:39:33

And what made her even think, but, probably, she thought,

0:39:330:39:37

"Why should anyone send me a bag of raw beans?

0:39:370:39:41

"We've got no facilities to cook here."

0:39:410:39:44

So she sifted through the bag of beans until she found that photo,

0:39:440:39:48

and that was a sign that my little brother was alive.

0:39:480:39:51

What that photograph must have meant to a mother who was separated from

0:39:510:39:55

-their son...

-Yeah, yeah.

-Extraordinary.

0:39:550:39:57

Food was so important, wasn't it, Zahava?

0:39:570:40:00

Your journey took you from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen,

0:40:000:40:04

and these are your dishes from the camps.

0:40:040:40:07

One for my father,

0:40:070:40:09

my mother and one for me,

0:40:090:40:12

and once a day there was some kind of food

0:40:120:40:14

given to us, but it was just...

0:40:140:40:18

..non mentionable.

0:40:190:40:21

And in the morning, they gave us a kind of coloured stuff,

0:40:210:40:24

which they called coffee,

0:40:240:40:26

and then nothing until later on, and that was served in these bowls.

0:40:260:40:33

Now, this was a plait, and this is your hair that your mother kept.

0:40:330:40:37

Yeah, to my mother, it was very important,

0:40:370:40:39

and she always looked after that for many, many years

0:40:390:40:43

because my mother used to do my plaits every day,

0:40:430:40:46

but she kept the hair all the time.

0:40:460:40:49

On one occasion, during the night,

0:40:490:40:51

because we slept on the third,

0:40:510:40:54

on the top bunk, and there was a beam separating

0:40:540:40:58

another couple from my mother and me, and on the beam

0:40:580:41:03

was a bucket with excrement of the lady who was very seriously ill,

0:41:030:41:09

and during the night,

0:41:090:41:11

she was so ill and she knocked the bucket over,

0:41:110:41:15

and it came all over my hair, so my mother was so upset about it,

0:41:150:41:19

so she queued up the next morning, instead of six,

0:41:190:41:22

when they used to deliver some coffee,

0:41:220:41:25

she went early at five o'clock that she would get a bit more fluid

0:41:250:41:29

to try and get it out of my hair.

0:41:290:41:31

And she kept my hair right until the end.

0:41:310:41:34

She was an extraordinary woman, your mother, wasn't she?

0:41:340:41:36

She was, she really was exceptional.

0:41:360:41:38

Actually, and this is a very important story,

0:41:380:41:43

why I am sitting here is because I was born in Palestine

0:41:430:41:47

so I was British protected.

0:41:470:41:49

It was literally...we were just outside the train of a cattle cart

0:41:490:41:56

going to Auschwitz and somebody said, "This is family Kanarek,"

0:41:560:42:01

because the three of us were standing there together,

0:42:010:42:04

and we were told, "Don't go onto the wagon

0:42:040:42:08

"because you've been taken off this transport."

0:42:080:42:10

Had he come a minute later,

0:42:100:42:12

we would have been inside the cart

0:42:120:42:15

and nobody would have known where to find us.

0:42:150:42:18

It was the most extraordinary story,

0:42:180:42:20

that piece of luck, that somebody plucked you

0:42:200:42:23

from what was going to be a transportation to Auschwitz.

0:42:230:42:26

-Yeah.

-Zahava, thank you very much

0:42:260:42:28

for sharing your stories again today.

0:42:280:42:30

The first time I met you, you had an enormous impact on me,

0:42:300:42:33

and it's the same again today.

0:42:330:42:35

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

0:42:350:42:37

Well, we have a ring in a circular silver box, a photograph or two,

0:42:490:42:55

a document or two, telling the story of an extraordinary woman,

0:42:550:43:01

and certainly a story that most people will not have known about.

0:43:010:43:06

Tell me about her.

0:43:060:43:08

This story is about our aunt, Jane Haining,

0:43:080:43:11

who was a young girl working and living in Scotland, Glasgow,

0:43:110:43:17

and she received a calling. She knew her life's work

0:43:170:43:20

was to work with young children, and she worked with

0:43:200:43:23

the Church of Scotland and she decided that she would become

0:43:230:43:28

a matron in a children's home in Budapest.

0:43:280:43:31

-In Hungary.

-In Hungary.

0:43:310:43:32

Most of the children in the school, they were Christian children,

0:43:320:43:35

but there were a lot of Jewish there too, a lot of them were orphans,

0:43:350:43:39

and Jane just didn't discriminate between Jews or Christians.

0:43:390:43:44

All children were children of God, she used to say.

0:43:440:43:47

Would it be true to say that all the children really adored her,

0:43:470:43:51

that she was one of those matronly figures who had the authority,

0:43:510:43:54

but also somebody who had a certain bearing that you respected

0:43:540:43:58

-and you liked her, too?

-She loved them and of course she learnt...

0:43:580:44:01

She spent quite a time

0:44:010:44:03

learning Hungarian so that she could speak fluent with the children.

0:44:030:44:07

Did she make visits home

0:44:070:44:08

between then and the outbreak of the war, or...

0:44:080:44:11

She did. Well, she made two visits we know.

0:44:110:44:14

This picture was her home and holiday, 1939,

0:44:140:44:17

and war broke out. Jane was asked not to go back, but she felt,

0:44:170:44:22

oh, gosh, her children would need her.

0:44:220:44:24

As it's quoted, if they needed her in days of sunshine,

0:44:240:44:28

how much more would they need her in days of darkness.

0:44:280:44:31

So, tell me what happened with regard to the change

0:44:310:44:34

that led to her being taken by the Nazis?

0:44:340:44:37

What actually happened?

0:44:370:44:39

Because there was Jewish children in the orphanage,

0:44:390:44:43

she'd sew yellow stars on the Jewish children's outfits.

0:44:430:44:46

She also wanted to maintain contact with home

0:44:460:44:49

and she would listen to the BBC radio.

0:44:490:44:51

She kept in contact with home.

0:44:510:44:53

They had to try and find things to accuse her of,

0:44:530:44:55

and that's what she was accused of, those things.

0:44:550:44:58

There was a story, wasn't there,

0:44:580:45:00

apparently that the son-in-law of the cook...

0:45:000:45:04

-He stole some fruit.

-Stole some fruit.

0:45:040:45:06

-Jane scolded him.

-Told him off.

-Told him off.

0:45:060:45:09

He wasn't going to be told off,

0:45:090:45:12

and he goes to the Gestapo and he reports her.

0:45:120:45:16

And the following day...

0:45:160:45:18

-She's arrested.

-..the Gestapo come and arrest her.

-Mm-hm.

0:45:180:45:22

But again, she felt safe because some of the children report

0:45:220:45:26

that she turned to them as she left and said,

0:45:260:45:29

"Don't worry, I'll be back in half an hour."

0:45:290:45:31

"I'll be back in half an hour."

0:45:310:45:32

She was so sure nothing was going to happen to her.

0:45:320:45:35

That somehow she was not...

0:45:350:45:36

But she goes to Auschwitz and of course...

0:45:360:45:41

Dies there.

0:45:410:45:42

But she sacrificed, you know, herself for her work

0:45:420:45:45

and her children.

0:45:450:45:47

This is where I can tell you a bit about the ring, can't I?

0:45:490:45:53

-Wonderful.

-Where do you think she might have got it from?

0:45:530:45:56

We think perhaps she was given it from her employer.

0:45:560:45:59

-In Scotland.

-In Scotland.

0:45:590:46:00

In Scotland. So this is a tangible link between her and home.

0:46:000:46:04

-It's not.

-No?

0:46:040:46:05

It's not. I've looked inside the mount and there is a very clear,

0:46:050:46:10

distinct mark. It's an Austro-Hungarian stamp.

0:46:100:46:13

-Gosh.

-So, I think at some point from the time

0:46:130:46:18

that she was out there until her removal to Auschwitz,

0:46:180:46:21

she made friends, or whatever it may have been,

0:46:210:46:24

and someone, probably in gratitude for the extraordinary kindness,

0:46:240:46:28

gave her the garnet ring, which has now become something

0:46:280:46:33

of a lightning conductor between now and this redoubtable woman,

0:46:330:46:38

who was one of the very rare British people

0:46:380:46:42

-to lose their lives in the camp.

-Indeed.

0:46:420:46:45

I'm very privileged to see it. Thank you very much indeed.

0:46:450:46:48

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

0:46:480:46:50

I was born in Holland, in Arnhem, a very small Jewish community

0:46:590:47:05

and I've brought you a picture of my grandmother

0:47:050:47:08

and a picture of my grandfather, who both perished in the Holocaust.

0:47:080:47:12

This was their menorah.

0:47:120:47:15

This is all we have left from them.

0:47:150:47:17

It was buried in a neighbour's garden,

0:47:170:47:20

and it was a struggle to get it back.

0:47:200:47:23

My father had to dig it up with his pals from the Dutch resistance.

0:47:230:47:27

It was wrapped in sack cloths and all sorts, and it was green,

0:47:270:47:34

and my sister and me polished it

0:47:340:47:35

till we got it back more or less in this condition,

0:47:350:47:38

and we have been lighting it every single year

0:47:380:47:42

at the Festival of Lights.

0:47:420:47:44

After my mother passed away,

0:47:440:47:45

I took it home with me and now I light it every single year

0:47:450:47:49

on the Festival of Lights, and, obviously, it's extremely precious.

0:47:490:47:54

I have a little gold pendant...

0:47:570:48:00

what survived, together with me, Auschwitz.

0:48:000:48:06

I think that is the only gold

0:48:060:48:10

what went in in the camp

0:48:100:48:13

and came out with the original owner.

0:48:130:48:17

When I was in the camp, it was in the heel of the shoe,

0:48:170:48:23

but the heel, with time,

0:48:230:48:25

was worn out, so what could I do with this little pendant?

0:48:250:48:32

I had even not a piece of paper where to put it.

0:48:320:48:35

So, I put it every day in this little piece of bread

0:48:350:48:41

what we had and like that,

0:48:410:48:44

that survived the camp.

0:48:440:48:47

And I wear it every day now.

0:48:470:48:51

That is a link between the past, with my family,

0:48:510:48:56

and with the future, with my children and grandchildren.

0:48:560:49:02

So, as World War II came to an end,

0:49:110:49:13

as we had fought our way across Europe,

0:49:130:49:16

in April 1945,

0:49:160:49:19

-the British Army came across a camp called Belsen.

-Hmm.

0:49:190:49:25

The problem in Belsen at that point was the overcrowding

0:49:260:49:30

had given most people typhus,

0:49:300:49:33

so they said to the British, "We have a problem.

0:49:330:49:36

"At the end of this road is a camp, and everybody in it has typhus.

0:49:360:49:41

"We don't have the infrastructure to deal with this any more."

0:49:410:49:45

So, the British Army put together

0:49:450:49:47

I suppose what could be called a relief package of doctors...

0:49:470:49:50

..padres, all sorts of people who can go to this place

0:49:520:49:55

and try and sort out the mess. And they reached that camp

0:49:550:49:58

and they reached... one can only imagine

0:49:580:50:01

a sight that no-one can imagine,

0:50:010:50:04

and one of those people, a padre, was your ancestor.

0:50:040:50:08

-Yes.

-Who was he to you?

-He was my father's cousin.

0:50:080:50:11

His name was Father John, he was a Catholic priest

0:50:110:50:14

and he was with a hospital team, as far as we know,

0:50:140:50:17

and he went in at the end of the first week and did what he could,

0:50:170:50:21

with not just the survivors, but also with the Germans, as well.

0:50:210:50:25

What we have there on the table is what they made to thank him.

0:50:250:50:29

So, this jewellery, it was made in Belsen itself.

0:50:290:50:33

In Belsen itself, for him.

0:50:330:50:35

They didn't have many things to use so it was what they had.

0:50:350:50:38

Some of it was the wire from the Red Cross parcels.

0:50:380:50:42

The cameo was made from the handle of a toothbrush.

0:50:420:50:44

-Really?

-Because they were bone at the time, apparently.

0:50:440:50:47

They knew he had a sister, so the gifts were for her, not for him.

0:50:470:50:51

What an incredible thing to come out of something

0:50:510:50:55

-that was so dreadful, really.

-Yes.

0:50:550:50:57

Now, we have this photograph of a German soldier.

0:50:570:51:00

-Yes, he was a pastor.

-The German was a pastor?

0:51:000:51:03

The German is a pastor, yes.

0:51:030:51:05

And what sort of relationship did your ancestor

0:51:050:51:07

have with these guards?

0:51:070:51:09

With the guards, he certainly, as a Catholic priest...

0:51:090:51:11

They had been Catholic and he heard their confessions,

0:51:110:51:13

so he knew, in exact detail, what they had done.

0:51:130:51:16

What did he think about that?

0:51:160:51:18

He said, "We don't know how we would react in the same circumstances.

0:51:180:51:21

"We don't know why they behaved as they did. And who are we to judge?"

0:51:210:51:25

And he said, "You have to forgive them."

0:51:250:51:28

Wow. Now, that is magnanimous standing in amongst...

0:51:280:51:30

-Yes.

-..that place.

-And he kept to that the rest of his life.

0:51:300:51:34

He also, I understand, held the first mass for many years.

0:51:340:51:37

Yes, you have the picture there.

0:51:370:51:39

-There it is.

-The Germans were invited, as well.

0:51:390:51:42

He had no baby Jesus, he had to use a doll

0:51:420:51:45

and, apparently, the Germans are in tears.

0:51:450:51:48

It was the first mass, I think, since 1936.

0:51:480:51:51

To have someone who was there who looked at it

0:51:510:51:53

in such a dispassionate way,

0:51:530:51:55

that actually must have been an incredibly hard thing to do,

0:51:550:51:59

because most people's reaction when the British soldiers arrived was,

0:51:590:52:03

"Let's kill all these Germans straightaway."

0:52:030:52:06

Yes, you can understand that.

0:52:060:52:08

But he was very much a very strong Christian.

0:52:080:52:11

-And that's how he lived.

-He must have been an amazing man.

0:52:110:52:15

Yes, well, obviously, the things we have here are thank-you presents.

0:52:150:52:18

The portrait that you see

0:52:180:52:20

was another thank-you present.

0:52:200:52:22

That was done at Heidenau, and then the icon was also Bergen-Belsen.

0:52:220:52:26

So, these objects, so lovingly given to Father John,

0:52:260:52:30

-if I may be so bold as to say that?

-Please do.

-What do they mean to you?

0:52:300:52:33

Well, they represent what he was as a person.

0:52:330:52:36

The fact that he could listen to people

0:52:360:52:38

who had done some of the worst things in the world,

0:52:380:52:40

that he could help people who were in total distress,

0:52:400:52:43

who had nothing to do, nowhere to go,

0:52:430:52:45

-lives almost totally destroyed.

-Yeah.

0:52:450:52:48

It says a lot about the man, and we need more people like that.

0:52:480:52:52

After the war, many people were displaced and homeless.

0:52:550:52:59

The British Government offered to take in 1,000 young orphans

0:52:590:53:02

who had survived the camps.

0:53:020:53:04

But the Nazi killing machine had been so effective,

0:53:040:53:08

only 732 could be found.

0:53:080:53:11

With no families left to look after them,

0:53:110:53:14

they were airlifted to Britain and resettled together.

0:53:140:53:17

Now, we started talking about Kindertransport

0:53:180:53:21

and children leaving Germany before the war.

0:53:210:53:25

In a way, we're finishing in a full circle, because we're now

0:53:250:53:30

talking about children coming to Britain after the war.

0:53:300:53:34

In 1945, 732 surviving orphan children came to Britain

0:53:340:53:41

and we are surrounded, here, by family members from that group,

0:53:410:53:47

by four fantastic quilts,

0:53:470:53:50

which are all to do with the story of that group

0:53:500:53:54

and their subsequent lives and families

0:53:540:53:57

as they've lived on into our time.

0:53:570:54:00

How did this come about?

0:54:000:54:02

Well, it was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camps in 2015,

0:54:020:54:07

and the second generation, the children of survivors,

0:54:070:54:10

wanted to do something to commemorate this special occasion

0:54:100:54:14

and to honour their survivor parents and grandparents,

0:54:140:54:17

so we were wondering what could we make that would include everybody?

0:54:170:54:21

And the idea of the memory quilt came about,

0:54:210:54:23

so that families could make squares together with their survivor parents

0:54:230:54:27

or the children could make the squares,

0:54:270:54:30

and we wanted to include all 732 of the children

0:54:300:54:35

that came over in 1945 and '46.

0:54:350:54:37

And so every square was made by a family who did whatever they wanted.

0:54:370:54:41

-Yes.

-And, in a way, it's a story of celebration, isn't it?

0:54:410:54:45

Absolutely, it's triumph over adversity.

0:54:450:54:48

These people came to England with absolutely nothing.

0:54:480:54:50

They were young, they had been through terrible horrors

0:54:500:54:53

and they came to England and made new lives and rebuilt their lives.

0:54:530:54:56

And they were called "the boys", but they weren't all, were they?

0:54:560:54:59

No, out of the 732, there were 80 girls, but as a result,

0:54:590:55:04

they were a close-knit group known as "the boys".

0:55:040:55:07

Now, you've both got stories, you've both got squares.

0:55:070:55:10

-Can we see those?

-Yeah.

0:55:100:55:11

Sue, show me yours first.

0:55:130:55:14

So, this square represents my father, Bob Obuchowski.

0:55:140:55:18

He started life in a small town in Poland called Ozorkow

0:55:180:55:22

and he went through the ghettos and the concentration camps,

0:55:220:55:25

including Auschwitz,

0:55:250:55:27

and he was liberated in Theresienstadt

0:55:270:55:30

and came to this country.

0:55:300:55:32

He was welcomed in this country and he loved this country

0:55:320:55:36

and his first days in Windermere he says he never forgot,

0:55:360:55:40

particularly marmalade - he'd never tasted marmalade before.

0:55:400:55:45

And it carries on through,

0:55:450:55:47

he met my mum and married her and had a family

0:55:470:55:50

and he became a master upholsterer,

0:55:500:55:53

which is why we've set our square as a living room

0:55:530:55:57

and these figures represent my mum and my dad on the sofa.

0:55:570:56:00

It just represents him, really.

0:56:000:56:03

-Well, it's his life.

-It's his life and he ended his life in Redbridge,

0:56:030:56:07

a London borough, so very different to Ozorkow in Poland.

0:56:070:56:11

-And, Julia, yours?

-This is my father's square.

0:56:110:56:14

We chose the Carpathian Mountains as a backdrop.

0:56:140:56:17

He came from Czechoslovakia.

0:56:170:56:19

This is a photo of him that was taken when he was transferred

0:56:190:56:23

from Auschwitz to Buchenwald.

0:56:230:56:25

And this is a photo taken of him in the 1970s.

0:56:250:56:28

Whenever he used to walk into a room, he always used to say,

0:56:280:56:31

"Hello, you lucky people,"

0:56:310:56:33

and I think he probably thought that we were lucky.

0:56:330:56:36

It's a very powerful part of this celebration

0:56:360:56:40

that amongst the families who are with us today

0:56:400:56:44

are three survivors

0:56:440:56:47

of those original 732,

0:56:470:56:49

two gentlemen and a lady are with us today,

0:56:490:56:53

along with later generations.

0:56:530:56:56

Now, it seems to me the job you've given yourself is to be guardians

0:56:560:57:00

of the testimonies of all these... I say "boys".

0:57:000:57:05

You've given us something that we can all understand

0:57:050:57:08

-and take forward into the future.

-Absolutely.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

0:57:080:57:13

It's been a remarkable day,

0:57:230:57:25

and while many of the stories we've heard have, of course,

0:57:250:57:28

been intensely sad,

0:57:280:57:30

others have been of extraordinary courage and resilience,

0:57:300:57:33

and all the survivors of the Holocaust,

0:57:330:57:36

be they first or third generation,

0:57:360:57:38

are all playing their part in ensuring that the memories

0:57:380:57:40

and lessons of that most painful of times

0:57:400:57:44

will not be forgotten or repeated.

0:57:440:57:47

Bye-bye.

0:57:470:57:48

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