Judge Rinder’s Who Do You Think You Are? episode uncovers what happened to his Jewish relatives during the Holocaust
JUDGE Rinder recently took part in an episode of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? and the programme's researchers revealed his family has an emotional past.
Here is everything you need to know about his grandfather Morris Malenicky, and his family's heartbreaking concentration camp story.
Who was Judge Rinder's grandfather?
Judge Rinder comes from a large Jewish family.
His grandfather, Morris Malenicky was born in Piotrkow, Poland. He was the only member of his family to survive the war after they were killed in the Holocaust.
A teenager at the time, Morris survived because he was deemed fit to work and put to forced labour in a glass factory. He was later sent to camps in Germany and German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
In 1945, Morris was sent to Windemere, England with the help of a Jewish charity.
He died in 2001 at the age of 78, and was survived by his wife Lottie, who Judge Rinder says, "Is very much at the centre of our quiet family".
How many of Judge Rinder's family died in the Holocaust?
Shortly before his own death, Judge Rinder's grandfather registered his family's deaths. His parents, four sisters and brother all died at a concentration camp in Poland in 1942.
Rinder sees the registration document for the first time on Who Do You Think You Are when he travels to Piotrkow in Poland to follow Morris’s story.
When he sees a train pass a spot from where his family members would have been taken to their deaths, the tearful star says: “Just the most staggering thing of passing on a speeding train, your family gone and then you go back to your house and you’re alone.
“It’s impossible to fathom for my grandfather what that must have been like — to come back to nothing.”
How did Judge Rinder's great-grandfather die?
It was also revealed in the programme that his grandmother Lottie's father was believed to have killed himself.
His great-grandfather, Israel Medalyer's death certificate reveals that he died of natural causes, but was sectioned in 1932.
His case file notes reveal Israel was "deluded and hallucinted," and believed that his wife had lovers. He was diagnosed with depression, which is believed to have stemmed from him being separated from his family as a child in a Jewish hate crime.
Judge Rinder reveals that he feels "a sense of almost crushing sadness for him, and for those around him who were also affected by his mental illness."
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When is Who Do You Think You Are on?
Who Do You Think You Are? airs Mondays at 9pm on BBC One.
This series also features celebrities such as Olivia Colman, Michelle Keegan, Boy George and Lee Mack.