The British production company Wall to Wall produces ‘Fining My Family: Holocaust’, a two-part series for BBC 1 which will follow the British families of those who experienced the Holocaust re-trace their parents and grandparents’ steps.
Watford Grammar schoolgirl Maggie Fleet, 14, accompanied her “opa”, Steven Frank, then 83, for a half-hour film, Finding My Family: Holocaust, made for Holocaust Memorial Day by CBBC Newsround, the BBC current affairs programme for young children.
Maggie goes with Mr Frank first to Amsterdam, where he recalls his happy childhood before the Nazis occupied Holland. When they visit his old school, he sees a red line through his name in the register, indicating his removal after the Germans decreed that Jewish and non-Jewish children could no longer be educated together.
They visit Theresienstadt, the camp in the Czech Republic which Mr Frank survived with his mother and two brothers. And finally, they go to Auschwitz where his father, who had been active helping fellow-Jews to resist arrest in Holland, perished with other relatives.
The film about a teenager’s trip to Europe with her grandfather to learn how he survived the Holocaust received a children’s Bafta. A British Academy Children’s Award.
For this film Featurez gave advice, booked a car, did the driving and accompanied the recce, organised an extra cameraman and equipment, booked a crew van, did the driving and accompanied the filming.
