SUE’S NAZI SHOCK!

There’s joy and heartbreak for Sue Perkins asshe traces her German roots in the new series of Who Do You Think You Are?

SThat sense of shame I’ve always carried comes from my ancestor being put behind barbed wire

ue Perkins and Matt Lucas are famous for hosting that most genial of TV shows The Great British Bake Off. But when they delve into their family histories for the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are?, the banter is replaced by sadness and tears. Incredibly, both Sue and Matt discover they have ancestors who were caught up in the Nazi advance across Europe.

Sue, whose dive into her family’s past launches the 19th series of the genealogy show this week on BBC1, is full of gags as her journey begins. She’s poring over the Perkins family photo albums with her comedy partner Mel Giedroyc, joking about the fact that Mel’s ancestors were important enough to have a town in Lithuania named after them.

Then, when Sue discovers her mother’s grandmother Anna Tislau came from Lithuania and travels to the Baltic state to learn more about her, she discovers her own ancestors enjoyed the same honour. ‘This place is called Tislauland, because this is where the Tislau family had their very large farm,’ historian Regina Kopilevich tells her.

‘I’m so pleased, even though there’s nothing left of the farm,’ beams Sue. ‘It might be a pile of icy mud now but I don’t care – it’s home! And after joking about Mel having a town named after her, to discover my family had one too is extraordinary. The parallels between my life and Mel’s are remarkable – some sort of weird, universal silliness is going on here.’

Sue’s joy turns to horror, however, when she discovers what became of the Tislau family later. Historian Professor Christoph Mick reveals they were originally from Germany and returned there when Hitler came to power in the 1930s, only to fall foul of the Nazis’ desire for genetic ‘purity’. Sue is stunned when she learns about the tragedy that befell them.

She then follows her great-grandmother Anna’s journey. She left the family home in Lithuania to marry

German-born tailor Emil Muller in London in 1901, but Emil was removed from his home and interred as an enemy alien in a camp on the Isle Of Man during the First World War. ‘It explains the deep sense of shame I’ve always carried,’ says Sue. ‘It comes from my great-grandfather being put behind barbed wire. It’s created that sense of being “other”, of not being comfortable in my skin.

‘But I also now believe my work

ethic comes from Emil, because he worked so hard as a tailor.’

In a later episode, Matt Lucas also discovers he has relatives who were affected by the rise of the Nazis. ‘I was very close to my grandmother Margot, who fled from Berlin to England in 1939, and wanted to know about her early life in Germany,’ explains Matt. But he then discovers other Jewish relatives were not as fortunate as Margot. After fleeing Germany, some became trapped in the Netherlands when the country was invaded by the Nazis. Matt uncovers their fate – and a remarkable family link to diarist Anne Frank.

The other celebrities in the new series make astonishing connections between themselves and their ancestors. Richard Osman, whose hugely successful debut novel The Thursday Murder Club revolved around pensioners investigating a killing, discovers his fourtimes great-grandfather turned amateur sleuth and became entangled in one of Victorian Brighton’s most notorious murder trials. Actor and ex-semiprofessional footballer Ralf Little is delighted to be told his greatgrandfather was a Welsh international, though his devotion to the sport was tested by a wave of religious fervour that swept Wales in the early 1900s. Ralf also hears how his four-times great-grandfather played a key role in the development of Manchester.

Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays a chaotic mum in Motherland, discovers what kind of parents some of her ancestors were, and how this has affected the kind of parent she is to her own two daughters. She’s also confronted by a tale of domestic abuse that afflicted her grandfather Maxwell, whose name she added to her own to create her stage name.

Sue Perkins says she’d encourage any celebrity to take part in Who Do You Think You Are?. ‘Absolutely. Just make sure you’re emotionally open to where the programme takes you. It’s been a remarkable experience, even if some of what I learnt was very disturbing.’

Tim Oglethorpe Who Do You Think You Are?, Thursday, 9pm, BBC1.