Robert Rinder has revealed his emotional monologue wasn't scripted for 'My Family, The Holocaust and Me'.
Robert Rinder
The 42-year-old TV barrister stars in the new documentary series, which starts on BBC One next week and sees him helping Jewish families affected by the Holocaust learn about their ancestors.
In one scene, the 'Judge Rinder' star speaks to a 89-year-old woman in Voranava, Belarus as she reflects on heart-breaking memories of seeing Jews led through the city by Nazis before being shot and thrown into a ditch.
In an emotional moment at the site of the mass grave, Robert says: "I’ve seen so many things over the years… and it’s strange because on the one hand, it’s just a mound, a piece of nature, and yet it’s the most articulate expression of human evil I’ve ever come close to...
“In a piece of earth is a story we heard of people still alive, buried here and moving – it’s impossible to describe.
"That’s the most powerful, ugly, dark thing – this is the death of humanity, here."
Now, he has opened up on his speech, and insisted there was no script to help him.
He told RadioTimes.com: "I don’t know whether it was building up or not, but I can certainly tell you it wasn’t scripted.
"It was me, I think, perhaps articulating what that place was to me as best as I possibly could.”
He also reflected on the comments from the survivor, and how being able to understand her words directly had a huge impact.
He explained: "Only I could understand what she was saying in Russian, and I understood every word.
"It was strange – what she said landed with infinitely more power if you understood it in the Russian, it doesn’t have the cushion of the direct or the indirect article.
“There’s no ‘the’, so she said ‘mound was moving for several days.’ And I won’t forget it, it had a power which sometimes comes back to me now.”
'My Family, The Holocaust and Me' starts on November 9 at 9pm on BBC One.
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