Stephen Fry on Who Do You Think You Are ... Wednesday 25 Jan BBC2 9PM

[spacedonkey]

I can't wait to see this tomorrow - the man is a complete treasure!

[WigWamBam]

It was a very moving programme, and I thought he came out of it very well too. There were a few comments earlier in the thread about his smugness and lack of humility - I do hope that the posters saw the programme, because there was no smugness, and more humility than you could shake a stick at.

I felt I wanted to switch off at one point - not because I wanted to pretend that such awful things didn't happen, but because I almost felt I was intruding on a grief so personal that I had no place watching it.

[Bozza]

I agree with you wwb. It was extremely personal. However I sometimes think that personal stories like this being told are important to our comprehension of the horror, they make it more real than just numbers and statistics. Those beautiful little girls.... I'm nearly crying again now.

SF's mother was obviously very moved by it all - the girls were her cousins.

Very powerful TV.

[Marina]

I know what you mean WWB, but agree with Bozza that the daily, cumulative horror of what happened to Jewish citizens in Eastern Europe is best told by unbearable family stories like that of the Lamms and the sprightly Jan, the last Jewish resident still alive in that village, who came home after the war to find his entire family eliminated. For me the most poignant moment was him finding the plaque on the house and the woman who had gone to the expense and trouble of researching and installing it there.
Fascinating and moving tv

[WigWamBam]

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly that such stories need to be shown, and that having such a personal angle to it aids the comprehension that these were real people, not just statistics.

What I meant was that when the man was sitting there with tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, needing to blow his nose and crying about "f*cking Auswich", I felt that it was such a personal moment of grief for him that intruding on it felt wrong. I didn't mean I wanted to switch the story off, or for it not to be told. Quite the opposite.

[spacedonkey]

I know what you mean WWB - I felt a bit like that too. We were all crying along with him.

tessasmum - I just read your post and didn't want it to go unacknowledged. It actually made all the hairs on my body stand on end to think of your MiL's experience. It is so true, as everyone else has said, that hearing one person's story is perhaps the most powerful way of comprehending the enormity of what went on in WWII.

[tangerinecath]

I was looking forward to this episode more than some of the others - I'm a huge SF fan, love QI, Harry Potter etc.

I couldn't help but get upset with him, so moving, especially when he found the plaque with his great grandparents' names at their last address. What a wonderful thing the woman who arranged that has done. Personal accounts of the holocaust really bring home to me what an awful tragedy it was.

On a lighter note, I also loved the bit where he found out some of his father's ancestors had been paupers in a workhouse and also in jail. His quote "How Dickensian!". Wonderfully classic SF

[Bozza]

Actually in a way that was quite a sad story too wasn't it? The kids sent off to Margate on their own because they had TB?

[gomez]

An outstanding programme.

Tessabear - how very sad, we can never really imagine what it was and, in some parts of the world, still is like.

[tangerinecath]

Yes, the kids being sent to Margate was terribly sad. I feel so incredibly lucky to have had a trouble free childhood. Watching programmes like this makes me realise how much I take for granted.

Tessbear - your MIL's story is so very sad. Thanks for sharing it.

[Marina]

I watched the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe with ds and found the opening scenes almost unbearable. I don't know how families can have coped with sending their children away to strange places and even countries, even if it was with the intention of saving their lives.
I hope your MiL did not find the programme unbearably painful tessasmum

[brimfull]

wonderful programme,i think SF is great,so eloquent,he's a joy to listen to.

His comment near the end was so true. How we say nowadays how people have no respect for each other,which is so not true,how we have much more respect for human lives,and we are all so much more fortunate than our anscestors

Love this family history stuff.Actually saw our family name on that plaque !

[gladbag]

I thought it was a very moving programme, and was fascinated and horrified in equal parts.

Loved that photo of SF asleep on his beloved grandpa in the sun, and his description of such an exuberant and joyful man.

Great TV.

[alexsmum]

tessamum-how i just can't imagine how horrific that must be. we all want t o do the best for our children and when that best is to send them away with strangers...it literally must send you mad. it must.
i found this programme really interesting and moving. the contrast between the lamms and stephens grandfather who managed to get away...it really is a case of 'there but for the grace of god'

[sorrel]

don't you love it that he drives a london taxi!!

[DissLocated]

We taped it and I've just watched it. What I found shocking was the Jewish cemetary he visited that had a concrete wall around it to protect it from desecration. And the conversation that SF recounted where someone told him the jews knew what was coming, they should have just left - implying that they brought in on themselves.

[Aloha]

Tessasmum - about the babies
I actually read your post about three times before I could comprehend it
Marina, agreed. I cried at the beginning of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and when ds asked me what was happening, I had a huge lump in my throat.

[Blandmum]

As SF said 'We don't know we're born'.

When I look at my parents', and grandparents' lives and compare them to mine, we really don't take on how lucky most of us are.

My Father's mother had 6 children but three of them died as 4-9 year olds of things like scarlet fever and measles. He husband broke his back, working as a Miner, he started work underground at the age of 12. How she stayed sane I'll never know.

My mothers mother was widowed when my mum was 10. He husband had TB and had spent 6 years in an isolation hospital, dying by inches. She raised 4 children , through the depression, on her own, with no state aid at all.

My life in comparison, has been a walk in the park.

[treacletart]

really wanted to see this.. anyone know if this is repeated during the week?

[sansouci]

He's lovely. His tears were very touching. It must be horrible to discover your family has suffered so much.

[Mercy]

Martianbishop, yes it's quite amazing how teh quality of life for many families has improved over the last fifty, sixty years, let alone 100 years. Which is why programmes like this are so important; fascinating and moving stuff. We have it easy in so many ways

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

[Furball]

I've just been on the BBC website and it's holocaust remembrance day tomorrow.