Helena’s heroes
MY GRANDPARENTS’ WAR
C4, 9pm
SOME of our best actors are letting their grandparents take centre stage in this emotional and compelling new documentary series, starting with The Crown’s Helena Bonham Carter.
It’s basically a narrowed-down version of Who Do You Think You Are?, concentrating on the celebs’ ancestors and their experiences during World War II.
And the adventures of Helena’s grandparents could fill a whole series by themselves.
Her maternal grandfather Eduardo Propper de Callijon was a Spanish diplomat living in Paris with his family and then forced to retreat to Bordeaux when German forces arrived in the French capital.
It was there, against explicit orders from his bosses, that he helped thousands of Jewish people escape the Holocaust by issuing visas so they could travel to Spain and Portugal.
It’s an incredibly moving scene when Helena comes face to face with a woman who would never have been born had Eduardo not helped her father, then a boy, flee Nazi-occupied France and travel to America with other members of his family.
And considering that man helped to found Unicef, it’s a remarkable reminder of the consequences of people’s actions. Helena’s paternal grandmother Lady Violet Bonham Carter was another incredible character.
A politician mother-of-four and a close friend of Winston Churchill, she fought actively and publicly against anti-Semitism, earning herself a place on the Gestapo’s kill list, as well as campaigning for women’s rights and volunteering as an air raid warden.