10.00pm. Sunday 24 March 2013
Actor Warwick Davis undertakes a poignant journey to explore the miraculous story of the Ovitz family, seven Jewish dwarf performers who survived against all the odds during the Second World War in this second programme of the Perspectives arts strand on ITV.
“They inspired me in the sense they were just very good at what they did. but the inspiration goes beyond that into the fact they survived what they did, and endured it.
“I went to Auschwitz, to Birkenau, and stood in places they stood and saw things they saw, and remembered a testimony from them about looking in a certain direction and seeing what they saw. It was very powerful, and really moving
Perla Ovitz talks of their torture at the hands of Mengele:
“He took blood, pulled out good teeth. Look how many gold teeth I have. I had nothing to eat with. He did it to all of us. He pulled our hair and eyelashes out to see if they were the same as tall people’s.”
About 100 dwarfs were killed in Auschwitz. So being short wasn't going to be enough to save the Ovitzes. To buy more time, they’d have to use another of their assets; their performing talents, to avoid being taken to the gas chambers.
The Ovitzes’ nightmare ended in January 1945. Eight months after they’d arrived at Auschwitz, the camp was liberated. Along with most of the other SS officers, Mengele had already fled, taking his research with him. The dwarfs were transported away by cart, and arrived back in their village a year later.
I have seen so many documentaries about the terrible extermination at Auschwitz and to be their and walk in the foot steps as them was probably the most heart breaking experience of my life, and something that I will never forget. So to watch this documentary as a just as important, and I felt I could relate to him so much, because I have been their and felt what he is feeling, and how angry and terrifying it would of been.
What I have taken from the experience it to never forget about our history and how important it is to never ever let that happen again.
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