BBC TV "WDYTYA?" Series 5 Episode #3: Jerry Springer

[kooky]

Thank you for information re searching records. I have no family interest I just thought there might be people who did.
Kooky

[toni*]

Thank you for information re searching records. I have no family interest I just thought there might be people who did.
Kooky

like me

[Dancing Master]

As someone who had family die in Auschwitz and in Dachau, and some family who escaped  and knowing the information that was made available via the Jewish Organisations, and the death certificates that were issued after the war to the families, and the compensation that was paid out by Germany to the victims families (the family money is still in a  Bank in Germany because no one in the family will touch it  they call it the "blood money")

I do not believe he did not know that his grandmothers died in those circumstances. I still believe this programme is contrived as an entertainment, hence the tearful people we have read about on this postings.

They want to try and cope with it with many more family members involved.

One of my older friends is 85 who came out on the Kinder Train one of the last to reach Britain.   

Sorry but I don't believe him at all.

[Nick29]

I got the impression that he did know the fate of his ancestors, but he didn't know the precise details.  I don't think there is anyone alive of Jerry Springer's age that isn't aware of what went on in Europe in the 1930's and 1940's.

If you think the programme is contrived, why watch ?   Is this discussion going to be like last weeks', where politics overtook a discussion on a programme about genealogy ?

[Dancing Master]

 have already said I do not watch it, I have gone on the prior release in the press.   I wouldn't give Jerry Springer houseroom, but that is a side issue, the facts are it played on the viewers emotions and implied he didn't know where his grandmother ended up. 

It is contrived, it gives the impression that these people simply walk into libraries and various venues and immediately surprise surprise they find all this material, they do not state that they have had researchers working for many months on it and that the result is a contrived one which anyone who has researched their family tree (and I don't mean using Ancestry etc) knows full well it takes a long time . 

To my mind it gives the wrong impression to people starting out to do their family tree.
i

[silvery]

As I said I just couldn't believe he appeared to know so little about the Jewish Holocaust.
 
Similarly Boris Johnson must have known more about his Turkish g' grandfather than he appeared to.  See the last line of this article, just above references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Kemal_Bey

[Rena]

I have already said I do not watch it,  ...

 the facts are it played on the viewers emotions and implied he didn't know where his grandmother ended up. 

It is contrived, it gives the impression that these people simply walk into libraries and various venues and immediately surprise surprise they find all this material,

To my mind it gives the wrong impression to people starting out to do their family tree.
i

Apparently, the fact is you did not watch the programme.

The fact is that Springer did voice his opinion on what he thought the fate of his relatives were, but the fact is, he got the place name wrong.

The fact is that the voice over did introduce the professional researchers.

Another fact is; I thought I knew more about that period than I actually did...  for instance , to list just one fact:  I hadn't known about the gas lorries ..

I hope I haven't been too political.

Cheers,
Rena

[Windsor87]

It is possible that he didn't know, on a personal level, what happened to his grandmothers.

My great grandfather was a PoW in Germany/Poland. We know what camp he was in but other than that there is a lot we don't know because it wasn't spoken about. Not quite as bad as the concentration camps, but an example.
I don't know much about my grandfather either, simply because he was rarely spoken of.

If Jerry's family did not speak to him of the fate of his parents, there is no reason why he should have known the full extent of what happened to HIS ancestors (on a personal level). You also have to take in to consideration the fact that he was taken to the very places where his grandmothers were either murdered or left to die.

Hope I haven't expressed too much of an opinion this week...

[toni*]

your all entitled to your own opinions,

if only the programme was longer they might have concentrated on the male lines also.

he already knew their names so, it didn't help me with seraching abroad albeit my area is Ukraine and his Germany, but then the programme isn't made to help people with their searches