'HUMAN EVIL'
Judge Rinder breaks down in tears over mass grave as he describes ‘death of humanity�?in emotional Holocaust documentary
JUDGE Rinder broke down in tears over a mass grave as he described the "death of humanity" in an emotional Holocaust documentary.
The daytime star, 42, fronted hard-hitting BBC doc My Family, The Holocaust and Me after discovering more about his family's persecution by the Nazis on Who Do You Think You Are?
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Robert traced his family from Lithuania to Voranava in Belarus, where he met local Helena - who was a child at the time of the Jewish massacre.
She tells Rinder the Nazis violently gathered the Jewish population near a ditch at the edge of town.
The soldiers then gunned them all down - including the children - with a machine gun. Then after falling into the ditch, the Nazis covered them with dirt, even if some were still alive.
The story was devastating to Rinder, who revealed some of his family was murdered on that day.
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However, the numbers were just as horrifying, with Rinder narrating: "I later learnt that more than 1,800 Jewish people were murdered that day in May 1942 by both German soldiers and locals."
He then goes to visit the mass grave on the edge of town and the horrifying reality of the evil committed that day hits Robert.
Breaking down in tears, he said: "I've seen so many things over the years, in my professional background... It's strange. In some ways it's just a mound, a piece of nature, yet it's the most articulate expression of human evil I've ever come close to.
"So what's in a piece of earth, but in the story we heard... people still alive, buried here, moving - it's impossible to describe. I'd like to name the families, just to know they're remembered, that we told their story.
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"They had lives, and families, brothers and sisters who delighted in them. Maybe that's enough, for now. Name them and so in the most limited extent, give them part of their humanity. The humanity which was deprived. That's a thing.
"That's the most powerful, ugly, dark thing. This is the death of humanity, here, here. The hardest part is just imagining the last moments of terror. But also asking myself, standing here, what do we do now?
"This is not the only place of earth like this in the world, there are more in other parts of the world. There are more after the second World War and the hardest part is there will continue to be more."
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