Ben Helfgott

Sir Ben Helfgott MBE (born 22 November 1929) is a Polish-born British Holocaust survivor and former champion weightlifter.[1] He is one of two Jewish athletes known to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust,[2] although according to the definition of 'surviving the Holocaust' there could also be others, such as Susie Halter (originally Zsuzsa Nádor) who escaped from a forced march on her way to a slave labour camp[3] and then survived in hiding in Budapest.

Sir Ben Helfgott
MBE

Personal information
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Polish Jewish
Born	(1929-11-22) 22 November 1929 Piotrków Trybunalski, Łódzkie, Second Polish Republic
Height	165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	67 kg (148 lb)
Sport
Country	Great Britain
Sport	Weightlifting
Medal record Representing  Great Britain Weightlifting Maccabiah Games 1950 Israel Lightweight 1953 Israel Lightweight 1957 Israel Lightweight Representing  England Commonwealth Games 1958 Cardiff Lightweight

Biography

Helfgott was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Łódź, Poland. He was 10 years old when Germany invaded the country in 1939. In 1942, with the help of Andrew Janotta, he convinced the Nazis that he was ethnically Polish and not a Jew. He was eventually sent to a concentration camp. He was liberated in 1946, but was very weak. Initially sent to Buchenwald, Helfgott survived the Holocaust and was among around 750 youngsters sent to England after the war after being liberated from Theresienstadt; he formed a part of the initial 300 arrivals and thus of the group known as The Windermere Children who were sent to Troutbeck Bridge on arrival. He and one of his sisters were the only members of his family to survive the war; his mother and youngest sister were rounded up and shot by the Nazis.[4][5] There are descriptions of his experiences both during and after the Holocaust in Martin Gilbert's book about 732 young concentration camp survivors who were sent to the United Kingdom after the war.[6]

Weightlifting career

Helfgott won the nation's 11 st (70 kg) championship in 1954 and was lightweight champion in 1955, 1956 and 1958. He represented Great Britain at weightlifting in the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia. He was the captain of the British weightlifting teams at the Olympics in 1956 (Melbourne) and 1960 (Rome). In addition, he was a bronze medal winner at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff, South Wales. Helfgott also won the gold medal in the lightweight class at 1950, 1953, and 1957 Maccabiah Games.

Media appearances

As a guest on the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme on 1 April 2007, he chose to be stranded with a copy of Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy and a bar with two discs for weight training.[4] In 2010, Helfgott was one of five British Jews interviewed for an exhibit at the London Jewish Museum exploring "different ways of being Jewish."[7] In 2018, Helfgott appeared in an edition of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Robert Rinder. In the programme, Helfgott recalled how he had encountered Rinder's maternal grandfather, Moszek (Moses, Morris), in the Schlieben concentration camp.[8]

Personal life

Helfgott married Arza in 1966, with whom he then had three sons. He had begun a course at the University of Southampton in 1948 but dropped out after a year and thereafter was partner in a business manufacturing cheap dresses.[5]

Awards, honours and recognition

Poland

	Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2005)
	Knight Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1994)

United Kingdom

	Knight Bachelor (2018)
	Member of the Order of the British Empire (2000)

In 2012, at a Limmud convention in Nazareth Illit organized to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre, Helfgott was awarded a prize by the mayor.[1] In 2018, Helfgott was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contribution to services to Holocaust remembrance and education.

See also

• List of Jews in sports

References

1. Remembering the living dead: 40 years since the Munich murder
2. Steve Lipman (August 13, 2004). "The Olympics and The Holocaust". Jewish Federations of North America. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16.
3. "London 2012: My Olympic Experience, 1948 Olympic Swimmer Susan Halter". The Telegraph. 7 August 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
4. "Ben Helfgott". Desert Island Discs. BBC Radio 4. April 1, 2007.
5. Freedland, Michael (8 May 2018). "'I had to get on with living': how Ben Helfgott went from a concentration camp to Olympic weightlifting". The Guardian. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
6. M Gilbert The Boys, The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors. Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1996
7. Aaronovitch, David. "Jewish Museum: history with chicken soup: The all-new Jewish Museum in North London has the sights and even the smells of an ancient British way of life", The Times, March 2, 2010. Accessed February 2, 2011.
8. Rinder, Robert. "OPINION – Rob Rinder: We must tell our children and our children's children". jewishnews.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2020-02-02.