Ben Helfgott

Sir Ben Helfgott  (born 22 November 1929) is a Polish-born British Holocaust survivor and former champion weightlifter. He is one of two Jewish athletes known to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust.

Biography
Helfgott was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Łódź, Poland. He was 10 years old when Germany invaded the country in 1939. In 1942, with the help of Andrew Janotta, he convinced the Nazis that he was ethnically Polish and not a Jew. He was eventually sent to a concentration camp. He was liberated in 1946, but was very weak. Initially sent to Buchenwald, Helfgott survived the Holocaust and was among around 750 youngsters sent to England after the war after being liberated from Theresienstadt; he formed a part of the initial 300 arrivals and thus of the group known as The Windermere Children who were sent to Troutbeck Bridge on arrival. He and one of his sisters were the only members of his family to survive the war; his mother and youngest sister were rounded up and shot by the Nazis.

Weightlifting career
Helfgott won the nation's  championship in 1954 and was lightweight champion in 1955, 1956 and 1958. He represented Great Britain at weightlifting in the 1956 Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia.  He was the captain of the British weightlifting teams at the Olympics in 1956 (Melbourne) and 1960 (Rome). In addition, he was a bronze medal winner at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff, South Wales. Helfgott also won the gold medal in the lightweight class at 1950, 1953, and 1957 Maccabiah Games.

Media appearances
As a guest on the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme on 1 April 2007, he chose to be stranded with a copy of Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy and a bar with two discs for weight training. In 2010, Helfgott was one of five British Jews interviewed for an exhibit at the London Jewish Museum exploring "different ways of being Jewish." In 2018, Helfgott appeared in an edition of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Robert Rinder. In the programme, Helfgott recalled how he had encountered Rinder's maternal grandfather, Moszek (Moses, Morris), in the Schlieben concentration camp.

Personal life
Helfgott married Arza in 1966, with whom he then had three sons. He had begun a course at the University of Southampton in 1948 but dropped out after a year and thereafter was partner in a business manufacturing cheap dresses.

Awards, honours and recognition

Poland

United Kingdom

In 2012, at a Limmud convention in Nazareth Illit organized to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre, Helfgott was awarded a prize by the mayor. In 2018, Helfgott was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contribution to services to Holocaust remembrance and education.

See also
List of Jews in sports

References

Category:1929 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from Pabianice
Category:Sportspeople from Łódź Voivodeship
Category:Polish Jews
Category:Jewish weightlifters
Category:Polish people of World War II
Category:Maccabiah Games medalists in weightlifting
Category:Weightlifters at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Category:Weightlifters at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Category:Olympic weightlifters of Great Britain
Category:British male weightlifters
Category:Polish male weightlifters
Category:Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for England
Category:Weightlifters at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
Category:Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Category:British people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:Maccabiah Games gold medalists for Great Britain
Category:Buchenwald concentration camp survivors
Category:Theresienstadt Ghetto survivors
Category:Knights of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
Category:Holocaust survivors
Category:Competitors at the 1950 Maccabiah Games
Category:Competitors at the 1953 Maccabiah Games
Category:Competitors at the 1957 Maccabiah Games
Category:Commonwealth Games medallists in weightlifting
Category:Knights Bachelor
Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire