A world-leading archaeologist from Staffordshire University will feature in the concluding episode of My Family, The Holocaust and Me next week
Sam Al-Kadi/BBC/Wall to Wall Media Ltd
It was a privilege to take part in this documentary and to share some of our research with Robert. It is so important that we honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and continue to tell their stories.
In the two-part BBC series, Robert Rinder helps the second and third generations of three families who have experienced the Holocaust to discover the truth about what happened to their relatives. Robert also explores his own family’s Holocaust stories throughout the programme.
The first part of the moving documentary aired this week and Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls, Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Genocide Investigation, will appear alongside Robert in the final episode on Monday 16 November.
Professor Sturdy Colls is Director of Staffordshire University’s Centre of Archaeology which has pioneered Holocaust archaeology as a discipline by bringing together the expertise of technologists, social scientists, historians, and forensic archaeologists.
She explained: “I developed a unique non-invasive methodology which can help to create a very detailed and accurate picture of the crimes that were perpetrated.
“I’m very honoured and humbled to have worked with a number of Holocaust survivors, to have worked with their families and to have been given the responsibility of carrying out searches on their behalf. It is a real motivator behind continuing to do this work.”
For over a decade, the Centre has investigated historic crimes using forensic archaeology to shed new light on what happened at former camps and killing sites across Europe including in Poland, Serbia, Ukraine and Germany.
The team also investigated a Nazi SS camp constructed in secrecy on the British Channel Island of Alderney, which featured in a television documentary Adolf island last year.
Professor Sturdy Colls added: “I’m committed to ensuring that we find new ways to educate people about the atrocities of the past because lot of these crimes are being repeated in the present.
“It was a privilege to take part in this documentary and to share some of our research with Robert. It is so important that we honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and continue to tell their stories.”
The final episode of My Family, The Holocaust and Me airs on BBC One at 9pm on Monday 16 November. Find more information and catch up with the first episode here.