The Imperial War Museum has started a series of events to coincide with the unveiling of the new Second World War Galleries at their London headquarters. Celebrities (and two experts) take visitors on a tour of how their families contributed to World War Two, and so in the first I lucked out with the absolutely fabulous Helen Lederer. Her story begins with the Home Guard. Unsurprisingly the immediate reaction is to think of Dad’s Army, but in Lederer’s case both her father and grandfather volunteered – not because they were doddering old boys seeking distraction, but as Czech refugees they were prohibited from joining the armed forces. Part of the exhibit is the sinister Black Book, one of only two in existence, the publication produced in 1940 for Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of Britain. The 2,820 names within were to be rounded up and presumably sent to concentration camps. As jews it is almost certain the Lederers would also have been sent to the camps.
Lederer’s Grandfather worked as one of the listeners at Trent Park.
And this is where the story developed into something more unusual, certainly when compared to my own family’s war experience. Lederer’s mother began work at Bletchley Park in the code-breaking section. Her grandfather, seen by his wife tootling off every morning presumably to attend an Anti-Aircraft gun or something similar, in fact headed to Trent Park, where he worked as one of the listeners to the conversations of captured German generals.
In these salubrious surroundings of a country house formally owned by the Sassoon family, these senior officers would spend the war being wined and dined by their captors. Concealed throughout the building were microphones, recording their every word. Down in the cellar, Grandpa Lederer, and many like him, were listening to those discussions of pertinence to the war effort, and they would create discs and transcripts for further analysis.
We then moved to that most difficult of subjects, the Holocaust. Most of Helen Lederer’s family were murdered at Auschwitz, and she was understandably uncomfortable in this final part of the tour. Her father’s first cousin did have a miraculous escape as he waited in a queue for what he thought was a shower, when an officer asked him from where he came, and he was placed in a different queue. The cousin survived the war and met with Lederer after a TV show a few years ago revealed all this family history about which she had no idea. Our grandparents’ generation did not like to discuss what they got up to the war.
One historian accompanying Lederer was determined to keep our feet firmly on the ground at the end of the exhibit, most amusingly when it came to the VE and VJ day video. We were sombrely reminded that it was not a day of celebration for everyone, but as we watched the crowds participating in mass street parties they seemed pretty happy to me.
The event ended with a talk from Lederer and the two historians discussing her family. Not only was she very funny throughout, but she also showed impressive knowledge, way beyond what might have been the expectation.
The next celeb is Judge Rinder who is sure to be a compelling guide, though unlikely as funny as Helen. With the 80th anniversary of the war’s end the IWM has plenty of events upcoming, but readers could do worse than attend Iain Macgregor’s talk on his latest book, The Hiroshima Men.
Helen had been such a gracious host and she agreed to join the Aspects of History podcast to discuss all this, and her autobiography which covers much of the 1980s comedy scene that made her famous.
IWM events are available here. Helen Lederer’s new book, Not that I’m Bitter is out now.
Oliver Webb-Carter is the editor of Aspects of History.
