Judge Robert Rinder breaks down in tears as he hears about devastating family murder
EXCLUSIVE: Judge Robert Rinder was moved to tears as he learnt how some of his family members were murdered after arriving at a Nazi death camp
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Robert Rinder broke down in tears after hearing how family members were murdered half an hour after arriving at a Nazi death camp.
The Jewish TV judge describes his TV journey exploring the horrific suffering during the Holocaust as “the most profound moment of my life”.
He visits Treblinka in Poland with his mum Angela and hears how relatives died during the Second World War.
Rinder, 42, also travels to Voranava in Belarus where he meets the witness of an atrocity who saw Jews buried alive under a mound of earth.
He says: “I was listening to the testimony of the 97-year-old who is the last hearing witness of the massacre and only I and the fixer could understand what she was saying in Russian.
“What she said landed with infinitely more power if you understood it in the Russian – ‘mound was moving for several days’. It was without question the most profound moment of my life and I’m certain it always will be.”
In the film his mother says visiting Treblinka was heartbreaking.
She adds: “Nothing prepared me for what I witnessed and saw there.
“What would have happened to my family, my grandparents – this is where they got off the train and within 35 minutes they’d have been murdered. I thought the backs of my legs were going to give way.”
In an impassioned speech, Rinder says: “This is the death of humanity. Here. And the hardest part is just imagining the last moments of terror but also asking myself standing here, what do we do now?”
In next week’s two-part series, he also helps families who have experienced the Holocaust to retrace relatives’ footsteps.
*Robert Rinder: Me, My Family and the Holocaust, Monday, 9pm, BBC2.
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