My Grandparents’ War

-In 1939, millions of our grandparents went to war.

-This is a man, you know, I loved.

[ Chuckles ] He was my grandpa.

-Now four Hollywood stars are exploring their family's extraordinary World War II stories.

-You are going to fight an enemy who will kill you.

-Captured Christmas Day.

I didn't know that.

-Yeah.

-She must've been completely bonkers, going out with bombs flying, going out.

What are you doing?

They'll travel the globe to meet the last survivors... -He was a very good captain.

-Was he?

-Thanks to him, I'm still alive, really.

-...and speak to descendants with a shared history.

-So my grandfather would've known your father well.

-Oh, very well.

– Both: Very well.

-...confronting the terrors their families faced... -"You have to be Jewish, but not go to the slaughterhouse for it."

-Oh, my God.

...and the threats they encountered.

-This is the first kamikaze strike on a British ship in World War II.

-They'll uncover the sacrifices all our grandparents made... -Young men would be in the water, screaming for their mothers.

-[Crying] Absolutely horrific.

-...and learn how World War II changed their lives forever.

It's exciting because it brings him back again.

-How extraordinary history is, particularly this link of grandchildren and grandparents.

-This program was made possible in part by Elaine and W. Weldon Wilson and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

-Lady Violet Bonham Carter.

I don't think there's a woman alive whose life has been led so fully and so feelingly at the very top levels of British public life.

Her father, H.H.

Asquith, was prime minister 60 years ago.

One of her closest friends was Winston Churchill.

-I'm Helena Bonham Carter.

This is where my grandmother Violet lived during World War II, along with my grandfather Maurice.

I do have like a sketch of a memory of coming here and I remember her being, obviously, towering above me, and telling me that there were some jelly tarts in a cupboard.

It was a sort of built-in cupboard.

And racing to the cupboard and it was completely empty, except for, true enough, some jelly tarts, a whole packet.

Here's Violet and my dad, Raymond, as a young boy, in this very room, during the war.

A mother of four and a liberal politician, I know Violet spoke out against the rise of Hitler and fascism in the 1930s, but I know very little about what she did during the war.

She died when I was three.

Mum said that I used to kiss her, but in my way of kissing, because she liked a turn of phrase, Violet, she said that I used to present my trunk, [ Laughing ] like I was an elephant.

Which in fact, funny enough, I passed on to my son, because I've have got a photo of him being christened and Bill, throughout his christening, went...like that and that was my trunk.

So whenever I kissed someone -- well, with her, I went... But it's not just Violet's war I want to explore.

I also want to find out about my grandfather on my mother's side.

Eduardo Propper de Callejn was a Spanish diplomat in Paris during World War II.

This side of my family, European and Jewish, is as much part of me as the English, Bonham Carter, side.

I've grown up with a family story about how Eduardo defied the Nazis and issued exit visas which helped hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jewish people escape the Holocaust.

I'm going to start my journey at my childhood home.

I loved it here so much, I didn't leave until I was 30.

It's a treasure trove of pictures and memories of my grandparents.

-[ Laughs ] -My mother, Elena, Eduardo's daughter, is the connection between the two families and was a witness to her father's heroics in occupied France during the war.

So I was five when Grandpre died, and so I haven't -- I can't really remember him.

I've got like a vague atmosphere of it.

But can you -- -And you were even smaller when Violet died.

She saw your first steps, in your little lechals, and she thought you were the most irresistible character she'd ever met in her life.

-No, that's not true.

-Yeah, she did.

-[ Laughs ] -She absolutely did.

-Not the most.

-The most, absolutely.

She would tell me.

The last time you saw her, you walked into her room and she was very proud of you.

-Going back to Eduardo, what was he like, do you think?

-Very secretive, very few friends, but he never talked about what he'd achieved in his life.

He was extremely modest.

Because what he did was quite remarkable.

-He never talked about it, so you probably don't know why, why he risked a lot in doing those visas.

-I think he had a great sense of what people should do in life.

I remember Mother telling me in the evenings that she had to take hot water, put a lot of salt in it, and ask my father to put his hands in it because they were so exhausted and crippled by it, -Blistered.

-how much he'd been signing it, with both hands.

They would have all died, had he not given them the -- -And there was knowledge of that, at that point?

-Absolutely.

But he actually never spoke about what he'd done.

-Never?

-Never.

-I want to find out about the story that lies behind Eduardo's silence.

Both sets of my grandparents -- one in France, one in Britain -- weren't conventional war heroes.

They didn't fight in any battles or win any medals, but, now, I want to discover what they did for myself.

I've got this quote, "Suddenly, all my ancestors are behind me.

'Be still,' they say.

'Watch and listen.

You are the result of the love of thousands.'"

I love that.

So whenever you're lonely, I sort of think -- or you don't really know what you're doing or have a loss of sense of direction, you just have to listen very hard because they are just but a degree away and they can show you the next step.

It's very romantic, but that's what I believe.

To explore Eduardo's war, I'm going to a magical place.

Eduardo; and my granny, affectionately known as "Bubbles"; lived here in the 1930s.

Royaumont, near Paris.

This place holds special memories.

Here's me with Mum in 1995, celebrating a family birthday.

-Royaumont.

-I haven't been to Royaumont for such a long time.

-Well, this is the first floor.

-Oui.

-And my bedroom was -- I'm going to take you and show you.

-Oh!

-It was here.

I'm here to meet my second cousin, historian and novelist David Pryce-Jones.

David grew up here with Eduardo; Bubbles; and my mother, Elena; before the outbreak of war.

-Next door to it.

-And which bed was...?

-This was me, and that was Elena.

The beds were separate, I have to say.

-Yeah.

[ Laughter ] -I always thought you were brother and sister, really.

Your relationship is like a brother and a sister.

-Yes, I think it was much more like that than cousins.

I was treated as, really, an honorary child of Eduardo and Bubbles.

-I know.

It's so nice.

I'm so glad.

-That's Eduardo and Bubbles.

-Do you remember him playing with Mum, or you, since you were an adoptive child?

-Did you say playing?

-Yes.

[ Laughs ] -No, that wouldn't -- -No.

You didn't play?

-that wouldn't have happened.

Eduardo was extremely conservative.

-Right.

-He was conventional in his clothes, in his manner, in his speech.

Rather reactionary.

A monarchist.

Not on the Franco side.

Eduardo, I think, had a diplomat's view of the world.

-This home movie of life at Royaumont shows how my grandparents Eduardo and Bubbles shared the house with an extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Did everyone live happily together in this house?

-Generally speaking, they were pretty neurotic.

-[ Laughs ] Yes.

-And so there was a lot of raised voices and screaming -Right.

-and "You don't love me and you do this [ Laughing ] because you wish to make trouble," and all the rest of it.

They had nothing to do, really, except love each other and quarrel.

-My family's film footage shows life at Royaumont before World War II as pretty carefree, but my grandmother Bubbles' family was Jewish.

Eduardo's father was Jewish and, just over the border in Germany, in 1933, the Nazis came to power, unleashing a wave of violent anti-Semitism.

Granny -- how aware was she of anti-Semitism?

-Very much so.

Our great-grandfather Gustav had a motto.

-Yeah?

-Jude muss man sein, aber nicht zum Abattoir.

"You have to be Jewish, but not go to the slaughterhouse for it."

-Oh, my God.

-There were lots of Germans and lots of French who wished to murder them.

-Jesus.

In David's book about our family, called "Fault Lines," I found this passage that sums up perfectly our Jewish identity.

"Not quite Austrian and not quite French or English... socially conventional but not quite secure, here were people not quite sure what their inheritance required of them."

That's my legacy.

That's brilliantly put.

I think, if you're Jewish, our whole history has been about not fitting in, feeling like, "Oh, I'm not welcome" or... And are you Jewish before you're Austrian or are you Jewish before you're French?

Does it come before your -- What are you?

In Germany, the rising tide of anti-Semitism whipped up by the Nazis would soon threaten the lives of my grandparents.

-[ Speaking German ] -In November 1938, the Nazis ransacked Jewish businesses, synagogues, homes, and schools.

Known as Kristallnacht, it sent shock waves throughout the continent.

In Britain, my other grandmother, Violet Bonham Carter, had been warning about the threat the Nazis posed since 1933.

Now, after Kristallnacht, she was deeply moved by the plight of Jewish refugees desperate to find asylum in Britain.

Some reached out to her from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and Violet wanted to help.

I'm going to meet someone whose family had in their possession a bundle of letters written by Violet which tell a fascinating story of escape from Czechoslovakia.

I've never seen these letters before.

Nice to meet you.

-My name's Naomi Violet.

-Your name is Naomi Violet?

That was my granny.

-I was named... -Both: After her.

-That's her handwriting!

Oh, my God.

What is the connection?

Yeah.

-It starts with my mother and my father from before the war... -Right.

-in Czechoslovakia.

It's the only photo I've got of them as a family.

-Oh.

-And that's my two brothers.

This must've been prewar.

My mother came across the name of your grandmother -Mm-hmm.

-and realized that she, obviously, was concerned about the situation there and wasn't afraid to speak out about it, like a lot of people were.

My mother had managed to get over.

My father couldn't get a visa to come over and she must have written to your grandmother, saying, "I really have to get my husband over."

"Dear Frau Buchwald, I have received your letter...

I promise you that I will do all in my power for your husband... + am deeply touched by the photograph of your beautiful little boy.

I have one myself of just that age -- 9 years."

That's my daddy.

"I have already been in touch with the organization which is dealing with Jewish children here...

I am thankful that you are here + safe with your little boy -- but I know you must be tortured thinking of your husband and your other child."

Did he get out?

-I haven't got my specs on, actually.

-Do you want to borrow these?

-[ Laughs ] Thanks.

Lovely.

I was so moved when I saw this.

He arrived at Harwich without a visa and then, he was accepted by the British... -Something.

-Do you want these back?

I need my specs back.

[ Laughs ] -You read it to me.

-Then, he was "accepted by the British on grounds of a guarantee... by Lady Bonham Carter," yoo-hoo, "then of 40 Gloucester Square."

So she came to the rescue.

-Completely.

-Fantastic.

I'm so glad.

-The day after he arrived, the borders were closed.

-How extraordinary.

His relatives -- he had several brothers -- I saw the family name on the list of the people that had gone to the concentration camps.

-Mm.

-And the kindness of just one woman, the effect it has on, not only the people that she reaches out to, but to my generation.

-The future.

-The future.

I've always known and been proud of the fact that I was named after her.

-She found it appalling, what she'd heard about how Jews were being treated and she wasn't going to stand for it.

She had great heart and great words.

"This terrible tyranny + oppression surely cannot last -- as children must live to see the dawn of another day -- + to grow up in freedom, justice + tolerance.

If not -- one would rather they were dead."

I knew in abstract my grandmother was one to stand for, right, liberalism and freedom and protecting those who aren't privileged with the same privileges as her.

And there she is, helping this complete stranger.

I mean, there's the literal product -- a woman who would never have been born and called Violet, got the label, a sticker saying "Violet."

She wouldn't have been around, were it not for my grandmother.

I'm so proud of her.

Violet remained an outspoken critic of government policy towards Jewish refugees.

With her close friend Winston Churchill, she also warned that our appeasement of Hitler would eventually come back to haunt us.

I'm meeting up with my cousin Jane, who, like Violet, is a campaigning liberal politician.

Jane has copies of Violet's speeches from the time.

Appropriately, we're meeting in a room named in honor of Violet, at the National Liberal Club.

Cousin!

[ Laughter ] -All I would say about our grandmother -Yeah.

-is her heart's blood never ran cold.

-Yeah.

And, you know, she went through her life fighting the most important battles, in the most incredible way.

-That's so nice.

-Mm.

-And such a great thing for her granddaughter to say.

-Mm.

Well, you're her granddaughter, too.

-So are you.

-[ Laughs ] -You're first.

[ Laughter ] -She was always ahead of the game.

Very early in the day, she recognized what was happening to the Jews and she was out there... -Active.

-in the front.

Active.

Her speeches were so amazing that the crowd cried for her.

They called out for her.

This is an example of her eloquence, in a speech at the Albert Hall.

-"In our name I would like to say to the Jewish Community, if any words of ours can reach them: '...we share your suffering'" -- I love the compassion.

And "'we salute your courage.

But there is one thing that you cannot share with us,'" and that is "'our shame -- shame that the government of a nation which for centuries has at least called itself a Christian nation, should outrage justice, gentleness and mercy, should violate every canon of our Christian faith.'"

It's a great speech.

-It's a brilliant speech.

She was the star of the evening.

-How amazing.

-And, if I can quote, "Britain spoke, at last...

The platform was crowded with celebrities" -- interesting -- "in all walks of life -- all parties, all creeds..." But, "It was Lady Violet Bonham Carter who [was] the hit of the evening."

[ Laughter ] This is a very good review.

Who wrote that?

[ Laughter ] Violet's help for Jewish refugees and criticism of the Nazis made her a marked woman.

She was put on the Gestapo blacklist, to be arrested and executed in the event of a German invasion, and all this even before war had broken out.

What would happen to Violet and Eduardo, once the fighting started?

The German Army invaded France in May of 1940 and, in a matter of weeks, were racing towards Paris, where my grandparents on my mother's side, Eduardo and Bubbles, were living.

In 1995, armed with my own camera, I returned to their home at Royaumont to ask my granny, Bubbles, about how Eduardo cleverly used his diplomatic status to prevent the Nazis ransacking the family home.

Then what happened with Royaumont?

There was something that it became a Spanish -- -The Spanish flag was put on this house, huge, nearly as big as this room, to protect it from the Germans.

And the Germans were walking about all over and never walked up the steps.

Until Grandpre came to wake us up at 4:00 in the morning and said, "The Germans have broken the lines.

They're coming.

You must tell the nannies and the children to leave at once."

-Here, in this building?

-Yeah, yeah.

And they left at 6: 00 -- Philip, Mummy, and David.

-I was woken up -Yeah.

-and made to dress and it was very, I remember -- -Exciting, probably.

-I remember being thrilled.

I mean, this had never happened before.

-[ Laughs ] -And I saw the grownups in a panic.

-Yeah.

-I had never seen the grownups in a panic.

-Yeah.

-And I remember this extremely well.

-How extraordinary.

-And then, I sat in the back of this car with the two nannies and with your mother, with Elly.

And there we were, on the road.

-Is this 1940?

-Yes, about the time of Dunkirk, when it looked as if Britain and France, they were going to fall, be invaded and that was it.

-Yeah.

Scary.

Terrifying.

-Yes.

By the time we're on the move, everybody's fleeing from Paris and the roads are clogged up and people are getting lost.

-Nightmare.

-Total national collapse.

-Were most people on foot?

-Yeah, there were a lot of people on foot, and with bicycles and cars and everything was -Yeah.

With all their things.

-total chaos.

Quite a lot of mothers lost their children in the panic.

-Oh, God, how ghastly.

Almost two million civilians fled Paris.

Eduardo; Bubbles; my mum, aged just five; and David, four years old; joined the exodus pouring onto the packed roads.

They were making a 400-mile journey south, to the safe haven of Bordeaux, which was still in French hands.

[ Air raid siren howling ] [ Explosions ] [ Flames crackling ] At exactly the same time, London was facing the blitz.

My grandmother Violet Bonham Carter; along with my grandfather, affectionately known as "Bongie"; volunteered to help on the home front.

I've come to meet social historian Professor Lucy Noakes.

So this is where she lived throughout the war?

-Yeah.

We've got a diary entry from your grandmother that shows you some of what it was like to be an air raid warden.

-She's bang in the middle.

She's pretty vulnerable here.

[ Laughter ] -Oh, God, yeah, yeah.

-I wonder why -Absolutely.

-she became an air raid warden.

I had no idea that she did.

-Yeah.

-Shall I read it?

-Yeah, do.

-"In the Archway I found Pinto lying on the cobbles in great agony.

His leg was hurt.

There were big fires in Somers Mews -- Sussex Gardens -- Southwick Street.

After an endless wait got him off to St Mary's in an ambulance.

His leg was amputated above the knee.

He refused morphia.

Back to deal with fires."

Well, it was a full-on job, wasn't it?

-Yeah, it was, yeah.

-And pretty traumatic.

-There were a lot of injuries.

Nearly 2,500 air raid wardens were killed during the war.

-Were Violet and Bongie rare in staying?

I mean, was that an unusual choice?

-Well, hotels in the Lake District, hotels in Snowdonia, were booked up for the duration of the war with people who could afford to leave London and other big cities doing so.

So they were, you know, they were admirable for staying.

-They stayed, yeah.

-Yeah.

[ Explosion ] -As the blitz continued, German bombs rained down on British cities.

London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from September 7, 1940.

-I mean, it's beautiful here today... -Mm.

-but it was pretty busy here during the Second World War.

We've got the logbook here from the chief warden for the Paddington area, which included this area, and it's just for the one night.

If you look there, we can see your grandfather came on duty at 22:48.

So you can see some of the damage, some of what your grandmother would've been seeing during the night.

-Presumably, they were all doing their normal day's work.

-Yeah, of course people are.

They're really busy, so their doing this -- well, maybe grabbing a couple of hours' sleep, if they're lucky, then, they go back to work.

-Can't call a sicky.

-Can't call in a sicky, no.

You know, your grandmother was a busy woman.

She was on the board at the BBC, she had four children, she was organizing for the Liberal Party.

It's not like she could just go home to bed.

-So how many people died through bombing?

-Overall, in Britain, just over 60,000 people are killed.

-Nearby is St James' Church in Paddington.

This is where Violet and Bongie would've rushed people to the safety of the crypt as the bombs fell.

-And up there, you can see, in the middle, they've got the window in memoriam to the air raid wardens and their work during the war.

-It's rather beautiful.

-It is, isn't it?

It's gorgeous, yeah, yeah.

It's lovely.

You've got the search lights and the plane, but you can see it's -- it's a male air raid warden.

-"W" is not for "woman," I guess.

-No, "W" is for "warden."

-Ah, yeah.

-Yeah, yeah.

[ Laughter ] -This we know -- -I was joking.

[ Laughter ] Lots of the air raid wardens were women.

Your grandmother was very keen that they be treated equally with the men, so, in November 1940... -Good for her.

-Yeah, good for her.

...she wrote quite a long article for The Spectator about inequality in pay.

-Mm.

-So the few people that were full-time air raid wardens, at this point, men were paid �3.50 a week and women were paid �2.50 a week, -Mm-hmm.

-but they were doing pretty much the same work.

-Outrageous.

Yes.

-Yeah.

-I didn't know that she was an air raid warden.

I didn't know quite what risk she was running in being an [ Laughs ] air raid warden and how -- I think it came -- Lucy sort of bought it home, just how dangerous a life she was running.

It makes me slightly wonder what she felt, what my father must have felt.

My father, aged ten, must have felt even more vulnerable.

But she was very brave, as was my grandfather, but also completely bonkers, going out with bombs flying, going out.

What are you doing?

Violet was ahead of her time, fighting for women's rights even in the middle of the blitz and campaigning against anti-Semitism.

In June 1940, as the Nazis captured Paris, my Spanish grandfather, Eduardo, sought sanctuary in Bordeaux with his wife, Bubbles, and two young children.

Eduardo never talked about the fateful week he spent here.

I'm meeting his son, my Uncle Philip.

He was just ten years old back then.

This is the first time he's returned.

Eduardo, using his diplomatic powers, made a decision which would change his life and countless others, forever.

-So here's the street.

-Yeah.

And we -- -Rue Mandron.

-And that's the building that was the Spanish -Both: Consulate.

-And I think, sometimes, how many people are living today throughout the world, who were saved because their grandparents or father were given a visa in this house.

-How amazing.

-My father said thousands!

And those were his words, my father's words, thousands of people were here, clamoring for a visa to get out of harm's way.

-Nearly 80 years ago, the streets of Bordeaux were gripped with panic.

Thousands of Jewish refugees were desperate to leave before the Gestapo arrived and the roundups began.

Their main escape route was to cross neutral Spain to Portugal, but, to do this, they needed Spanish transit visas.

-And the Spanish government had told the representatives abroad, therefore, including my father, that they couldn't give any visas without sending the passports to Madrid.

-Yeah.

Would that have taken weeks?

-It would take days, at least.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-So it was undoable.

So he decided that the morally right thing to do was to disobey his government, and began issuing these visas right and left to everybody coming in there.

When you believe something is morally wrong, you have to stand up and say so and walk away.

[ Pen scratching ] -My grandfather Eduardo defying orders opened the consulate doors and, for a whole week, day and night, incessantly signed visas.

I've never come face-to-face with anyone whose very existence was a result of my grandfather's signature.

This was about to change when I meet Marta Balinski.

-A few steps away from here, your grandfather signed the passports permitting four members of my family to cross into Spain and through to Portugal and get a boat to the United States in June 1940.

-How amazing.

I've never met anyone.

-Two of these passports survived -Right.

-and so I have brought my father's, who, sadly, left us a few months ago.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

-But here he is as a little boy.

[ Laughs ] -What was his name?

-Michel, Michel Balinski.

-Michel.

Michel Balinski.

-There, he must be something like three... -Yeah.

-...three years old.

And, here, you can read -Oh, my gosh.

-the signature of your grandfather.

-That's amazing.

Propper de Callejn.

He had incredibly neat handwriting.

I love the fact that he made it all one word.

But I guess... -Yes!

if you're signing many, many, many, you'll make it all one word.

-17th June 1940 in Bordeaux.

-"Bueno para Espaa en transmito para Portugal.

El 1 Secretario -- 1st Secretary -- Propper de Callejn."

-And here's my grandmother's.

-How amazing.

-That's your grannymother?

-That's my grandmother.

At the time.

-You can see.

-Yeah, actually, there... -Yeah, you can definitely -- -...we have a resemblance.

-You definitely have a resemblance.

They were all Polish, Jewish?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

They went to France and they were there in spring of 1940 and then, they escaped at the last minute, basically, because, not only was my great-grandfather Jewish, he was personally blacklisted by the Gestapo because he was a prominent anti-appeaser.

Activist.

-Ah.

They really had to get out.

-Yes.

-I wonder how many people didn't get out.

-Travelling with them was my great-grandmother's sister and she was turned back at the Spanish border.

-[ Gasp ] What happened to her?

-She survived.

She was deported to Ravensbruek, but she survived.

-How amazing.

They got to Portugal... -So what happened?

-...so they lucked out.

They got on a boat and there he is, my father, in New York City -Both: with his grandfather -during the war.

-How amazing.

He founded UNICEF after that.

-[ Gasp ] Really?!

-Yes.

-How extraordinary.

-Yes.

And my grandmother.

-And your granny.

-During the war, yes.

-God, it's fantastic.

I wonder how many he wrote of those.

Thank God.

So I've never -- you're the first person I met who had direct -- who's directly -- who's basically had a life because of my grandfather.

One of the things that I've often thought about when thinking about the Holocaust is how much was destroyed.

But then, the tiny consolation prize is, then, you meet one life that was saved and that was a great family to have saved because he goes, the grandfather then goes and invents UNICEF.

And she now works for Mdecins Sans Frontires.

So it's almost like one humanitarian act then breeds a whole -- a whole genealogy, a whole tree of other humanitarian acts, which is great.

[ Pen scratching ] It certainly becomes -- When you see his signature on a visa, for me, that's -- it's exciting because it brings him back again and makes it real and makes the myth real.

I think Phil's really moved.

He mentioned that it was closure.

Can you imagine, closure, now, after how many years it's been since that week in Bordeaux?

-Bueno, vmonos.

-Vmonos.

Vmonos.

Eduardo had defied the orders of the anti-Semitic Spanish foreign minister.

He was punished by being sent to a diplomatic outpost in Morocco with Bubbles; Philip; my mother, Elena; and David.

His career irreparably damaged, Eduardo's war was over by June 1941.

Was he shocked that he was demoted?

-Oh, yes.

-He was?

-And it remained a trauma for the rest of his life.

He knew he'd been badly treated and he resented it and it's time for us all to go with Eduardo to Morocco and that's what we do.

So, then, I had no papers and Eduardo was the only possible way I could've got across the frontier, only by writing false papers to say that I'm his child, Eduardo adopted me.

He just cheated.

The day before he died, I went to see him in hospital.

I said, "Thank you for saving my life."

And he said, "I am glad you know it."

-That's so touching.

Eduardo's demotion held an inadvertent silver lining.

In Morocco, his Jewish family was well out of harm's way.

In Europe, the Nazis went on to exterminate 6 million Jews.

Today, we honor the late Mr. Eduardo Propper de Callejn of Spain, Righteous Among the Nations, who risked his life to save Jews during the Holocaust.

My Uncle Philip spent years campaigning for recognition of Eduardo's courage and, in 2008, Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, invited him, and my mother, to a ceremony celebrating Eduardo's role in saving Jews from the Holocaust.

-My sister Elena and I would like to express our deepest thanks that today justice has been done to my father.

[ Applause ] In 1942, my grandmother Violet Bonham Carter faced what all wartime mothers feared the most when her eldest son Mark, my uncle, was sent to fight the German Army in one of the bloodiest battles of the North African campaign.

I'm meeting up with Mark's daughter Virginia and my cousin Johnny to hear about how Mark's war affected Violet.

We've come to a place which is very special to my family.

There's my dad.

There's our Aunt Cressida.

-And there is Mark.

-It's rather touching that all three wanted to be next to each other.

-It's very nice, isn't it?

-Well, do you think they did want to?

-Yeah.

-I think they would still be arguing.

-Yeah, they would be.

Be very noisy.

-Mark was sent out to Africa.

They had a really horrendous battle.

People were just being blown up -Oh, God.

-all around and then, one of the leaders of the platoon, he has a particularly nasty injury under his eye... -Jesus!

-...and Mark takes, from his pocket, two tablets of morphia that Violet had given to him -when he went, that she bought -Really, really?

-How amazing.

-in Fortnum & mason.

-[ Laughs ] How extraordinary.

-Yeah.

-You could buy it in Fortnum & Mason?

-You could buy it in Fortnum & Mason.

-I wish you could buy it now.

-Yes.

[ Laughter ] -She knew that he'd fought in that battle.

-She knew he'd fought in that battle -Mm.

-and she knew that he was missing... -Yeah.

-...but she didn't know -If he had died, or where.

-where he was.

-And none of her letters to him came back unanswered, with "missing in action," or just saying "undelivered"?

-"Undelivered."

-"Undelivered," I think.

So then, slightly out of the blue, she gets this letter from Winston Churchill.

So he personally writes to her, even though he is the prime minister, -[ Laughs ] and he calls her, "Dearest Violet, I am profoundly grieved to learn that Mark is missing and at all the sorrow and anxiety you feel.

Please accept my deepest sympathy in your distress.

With heartfelt sympathy to you both, I remain, yours affectionately, W." -Did she reply?

I mean not that she needed to, but did she?

-She did.

"My dearest Winston Mark is -- he has been all his life -- the light of my eyes -- my pride & hope & Morning Star.

-Mm.

-Even if -- in these skies -- his star has set -- I am still greatly blessed to have possessed him.

It is hard, & strange, to be unable to reach him with my love, wherever he may be.

But I trust his young & ardent spirit to remain unbroken -- either by life or death.

God bless you dearest Winston -- & thank you for your thought of me -- -Aw.

-Ever [yours] Violet."

Very moving, isn't it?

-So she eventually found out that he was a POW.

-That he was a prisoner of war in Norther Italy, in Modena.

And she's actually hearing really worse and worse news because -- -She hadn't heard anything from him?

-No, not between the summer and the autumn.

And she writes in her diary, on the 11th of October, "I feel despair about Mark's chances."

-Really?

-Hm.

-And then, the extraordinary happens.

"The happiest day of my life -- without any doubt or comparison When I came in & went into Miss T.'s room she looked as if she had seen a ghost.

She said, 'Lady V. who do you think telephoned 3 minutes ago?

MARK.

He said he was in England & [would] probably be home tonight.

He has escaped.'"

-Extraordinary.

-Amazing.

-Quite extraordinary.

"Dramatic" or "sensational escape," it was called.

Mark had walked 400 miles through enemy lines in Italy to safety.

His escape made front-page news.

There was a quote, when I had a child, I had read, and it comes to mind.

It's something like, "Having a child of your own is having your heart taken out of your body and it walking around free in the world."

And the vulnerability of him going out to war must've been so unbearably worrying.

Then there was Jasper, too, which I find very haunting.

Mark's story is entwined with that of his brother-in-law Jasper Ridley, who was married to Violet's daughter Cressida.

Like Mark, Jasper fought in North Africa.

Like Mark, he was held prisoner in Italy, and escaped.

But Jasper never made it back to Britain alive.

I've come to meet Jasper's son, my cousin Adam.

-This enormous river, it was called the Tratturo.

-Adam has a letter Jasper wrote to Cressida, describing his life trapped in enemy territory.

-"In prison I trained myself not to hope, not to look forward, not to build, but to live in the present... Escaping was just another thing to be enjoyed as far as possible... living in an October beech forest of incredible changing beauty... and, generally speaking, being free.

I was prepared to lie up indefinitely and let the battle pass over my head... Till I heard of Mark's getting back."

What he's saying is Mark had the common sense to get on with it, get through as fast as he could.

-Yeah.

-He and others, lovely chestnuts, beautiful woods... -Yeah.

-...when he should've been getting on with it.

And then, he heard, on the radio, the news of Mark's escape and so that, then, made him set off in early December.

It's not very far to where the lines were.

-So he didn't actually have far to go.

-Not far, in that sense, but we now know it was somewhere in this area here that he met his fate.

You can see what the terrain is.

-Jasper was killed just a couple of miles from the safety of the British lines.

-There were five of them.

They had to walk through a minefield.

They didn't know it.

The first mine went off and probably killed at least three and, probably, my father died... -Yeah.

-...in the second.

We don't really know.

-So do we know when he -- when the mine blew up?

-December the 13th, in '43.

But, people did not know most of the way through 1944.

-So Violet, this is her diary entry.

This is the 19th of July 1944.

It's a long time after December the 13th.

"Cressida is wonderful, and little Adam a great solace and occupation.

-[ Crying ] -How Jasper would have loved him."

-[ Sniffles ] -So you were two.

Presumably, she wrote.

He knew that he had you.

-He did.

He did, indeed.

I don't know whether he had a picture.

I don't think you could send pictures very easily.

-That was July, the 23rd of July, and this is the 17th of August.

"Met Cressida and Adam at Liverpool Street, the first time I have seen her.

Her face moved me more than I can say, in its indescribable suffering.

I am haunted by her words, 'the unbeaconed future.'

That is what she faces every hour.

Oh, that I could go as Orpheus to Hades and bring back Jasper and stay there myself, instead."

-"Unbeaconed future."

-It's a great phrase.

Jasper's death devastated Violet and all my family.

The rest of the Bonham Carters survived World War II and, in 1958, the two sides of my family came together when my mum married my dad.

I always wanted to be at the wedding of my parents, to see these two families, which look so odd, and think like, "How did that work out?

You know, what was the small talk?"

And who thought -- they must've thought what a weird and wonderful -- who was weirder than the other?

But, actually, they're not that wildly different.

I mean, certainly in beliefs, a certain liberalism and a certain compassion and they're both, you know, I come from these two sides that were granted these visas.

We're like a visa family.

Visas are us!

[ Laughs ] I'm so proud to now know that both Eduardo and Violet, in the face of strong opposition, stood up for what they believed in.

I love what Violet says.

It's that sense of public duty.

That she was born with a sense of responsibility.

If she could help, you help.

And that, no matter how far away -- somebody's on the other side of the world and they have nothing to do with you, but you still have a responsibility to try and relieve some suffering and make it better, the world.

We're here for a short time.

-Next time... -My name is Mark Rylance.

My mum's dad spent almost four years as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong.

-When the platoon withdrew, they assumed he was killed.

-He was left behind.

-He was left behind.

-And I'm going to get a different perspective on what happened here in Hong Kong.

-There's always a mushroom cloud, and they don't show the people underneath.

-This is the truth of empire, isn't it?

-This is the truth of empire.

"My Grandparents' War."

-This program is available on Amazon Prime Video.

-This program was made possible in part by Elaine and W. Weldon Wilson and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.