BBC apologizes after Holocaust-era special omits Jewish identity
The BBC has apologized after a December 26 episode of The Repair Shop discussed the Kindertransport without mentioning that it was a rescue mission that saved around 10,000 Jewish children
The BBC has issued an apology following criticism over a December 26 episode of its popular program The Repair Shop that addressed the Kindertransport without mentioning Jews at any point, despite the operation’s central role in rescuing Jewish children from Nazi persecution during the Holocaust.
The episode focused on the restoration of a 19th-century cello belonging to theater producer Martin Landau, who fled Nazi Germany for Britain at age 14 aboard a Kindertransport convoy.
The instrument had been smashed by Nazi guards shortly before his departure and remained unrepaired for decades.
The Repair Shop, which features expert craftspeople restoring items of deep personal significance, devoted nearly a quarter of the hour-long episode to the cello’s history and the broader context of the Kindertransport. British actress Helen Mirren presented the instrument to the team, and luthier Becky Houghton restored it before it was played on screen by Jewish cellist Raphael Wallfisch.
However, the program never stated that Landau was Jewish or that the Kindertransport was primarily a rescue operation for Jewish children fleeing Nazi persecution. Historically, the Kindertransport enabled the evacuation of approximately 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia between 1938 and 1939, with the support of Jewish and humanitarian organizations.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, the word “Jew” was allegedly removed during editing from a sentence spoken by Mirren, which aired simply as, “…children were sent by the Kindertransport,” without further explanation.
Following public backlash, the BBC added a correction to the episode’s iPlayer page, acknowledging that “the Kindertransport was the organized evacuation of approximately 10,000 children, the majority of whom were Jewish.” As of early this week, however, the episode’s description on the BBC’s official website still failed to reference Landau’s Jewish identity or the Jewish nature of the rescue effort.
The omission has drawn sharp criticism from members of the British Jewish community, who say it represents a troubling erasure of historical truth and minimizes the specific persecution Jews faced under the Nazi regime.