TV personality Robert Rinder was visibly moved during his appearance on This Morning on Monday, as he discussed Holocaust Memorial Day. The GMB presenter and barrister joined the show to talk about this significant day, which honours the memory of Jews and others who suffered under Nazi persecution during the Holocaust.
His mother, Angela Cohen, had been sharing her own father’s experiences live in the studio with hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard when Rob joined the conversation remotely. He couldn’t hold back tears as he expressed his pride for his mother, who is the head of the ’45 Aid Society, a charity established in 1963 by Holocaust survivors.
(Image: ITV)
The society preserves the stories of over 700 children who were brought to the UK after World War II ended. Her father, Morris Malenicky, was one of the ‘Windemere Children’ who was rehoused near Lake Windemere upon his arrival in the UK.
Rob, who was awarded an MBE alongside his mother Angela in 2021 for their contributions to Holocaust education, spoke about their work on the show. “It’s been vital and a gift and a privilege and I’m so proud of mum and the survivors and those who go into the world to tell this story,” he said. “This could just be a story of horror and of trauma and ultimately of despair, but today it is also one of hope so it has empowered me through my mum and the survivors,” he added, reports the Mirror.
(Image: BBC/Wall to Wall Media Ltd/Tom Hayward)
“Also the brilliant British public and young learners across the country, where my mum goes and I have the privilege of going, to see every student from every background, teachers and young learners wanting to learn more so that they can understand ‘how does a democracy under the rule of law, a place that feels as modern as our state does now, descend into depravity?’ They want to learn that message and they want to go into those communities with courage,” he added.
Rob first shared his grandfather Morris’s heartbreaking story on Who Do You Think You Are? in 2018. Morris ended up in Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia before it was liberated by the Russians in April 1945. Polish-born Morris was a starving slave labourer making tank shells for the German army before ending up in Theresienstadt – and had to lie about his age to escape to the UK.
He went on to marry and have children and grandchildren, and died aged 78 in 2001. On the show, Rob revealed Morris once told him that to be in Windermere was “as if he’d come from hell and arrived in heaven”.
Rob says his grandad had a real love of Britain, adding: “This idea of democracy under the rule of law really mattered to him.”
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