From the critically acclaimed BBC Two and iPlayer series Pilgrimage follows well known personalities of differing faiths and beliefs on a personal journey of discovery as they tackle some of the most famous walking routes across the UK and Europe. In this series the Pilgrims go to Austria in Pilgrimage The Road Through the Alps.
Helen engages in a thoughtful and emotional conversation with Daliso, delving into her Jewish heritage and exploring the layered, often conflicting emotions she feels about the tragic fate of her father’s family, many of whom perished in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. As she reflects on this painful history, she grapples with the question of whether she has the right or even the responsibility to claim and “own” that legacy as part of her personal and cultural identity, especially given the generational distance and the complexity of inherited trauma.
Transcript
Pilgrimage Moments: Jewish Roots
Daliso: On this pilgrimage. When we are going through these places, the memories like, how do you feel?
Helen: It's triggering so much of, you know, obviously my father loved Austria so much because as a boy he would come to Austria. But then the more you know about the actual role that the Austrians purportedly played in the war, the two things are in conflict because a lot of Austrians were part of the Final Solution. I mean, this is the thing about numbers. The thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people who died, including my father's family in Auschwitz. I mean, it's just beggars belief, doesn't it?
Daliso: Yes. So it was your father's family. How did your father get get away?
Helen: Well, I think what was usual in 39 is you had to have a sponsor in England. They sent my father to school in Margate early, and then his parents followed and his sister followed.
Daliso: And when you were growing up, was it spoken of or never spoken of.
Helen: It wasn't largely spoken of because of the need and the gratitude to be English and wanting to put. The past you know, behind you and celebrate like we are just celebrating now, but move forward.
Daliso: Yeah, do you feel your Jewishness plays a big part in your life?
Helen: The Jewishness is complicated because I wasn't brought up in a Jewish home. We didn't. My mother was English, not Jewish. But when I think about my grandmother and the way she spoke and her sadness because there was obviously sadness, um, it's a conflict because you you've inherited this, like, paranoia that there's something you can't talk about, you can't overclaim it, because that would be a disservice to those people who are central to it. But it's really coming. It's kind of I'm feeling it now.
Daliso: I'm feeling it here.
Helen: So pick up your sticks. Let's go and catch up with the others.
Daliso: I enjoyed a brief rest.
Helen: A little rest.
Daliso: Let's do it.
Helen: More pilgrimage now.
