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The remarkable life of Ben Helfgott: A family man, Olympian and Holocaust survivor

 Karen Pollock MBE of the Holocaust Educational Trust reflects on a new biography by Michael Freedland detailing the extraordinary life of Ben Helfgott.

There is nothing usual about Ben Helfgott.” The opening words of Michael Freedland’s new biography of Ben Helfgott MBE encapsulate how many people feel about this exceptional man.

A family man, Olympian and Holocaust survivor, Ben’s life is an inspiration.

Through his work as a Trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust over the last three decades, I’ve had the privilege to work closely with Ben but I am still astounded when I think of all he has endured and all he has achieved.

Freedland takes us through Ben’s incredible life, beginning with his childhood in Piotrkow, Poland where Ben excelled in school and enjoyed racing his playmates in the town’s streets.

After the Nazi invasion, the family were forced into a crowded ghetto and Ben lost his mother Sara and sister Luisa, they were led away and murdered in the su

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As a child there was nothing Ben Helfgott couldn’t do. He was top of his class — outshining his schoolmates in every subject. He spoke three languages before he was eight.

You never knew when they might be needed. Even then he was politically savvy, reading newspapers and watching films way beyond his years.

Most of all he loved sport. He was blond and small, an agile livewire who won every game. He was also protective and thoughtful.

Ben was born into a comfortable Polish Jewish family, the son of Sarah and Moshe, who owned a flour mill. He had two sisters, Mala and Lusia. They lived in Piotrkow, a small town with a sizeable Jewish population, close to their extended family of 23 cousins.

But in 1939 bad things were beginning to happen in Piotrkow. The intuitive ten-year-old sensed the Nazis, smelled them in the air even before they moved in with their stentorian shouts, their bombs, their guns, their killing machines. The reign of terror had begun. He and his mother and sisters were visiting his grandparents when they heard the bombing.

Returning home via the village of Sul

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Ben Helfgott

Holocaust survivor and weightlifter (1929–2023)

Sir Benjamin "Ben" HelfgottMBE (22 November 1929 – 16 June 2023) was a Polish-born British Holocaust survivor, Olympian and champion weightlifter.[1] He was one of two Jewish athletes known to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust, along with Alfred Nakache, a French champion swimmer and water polo player.[2] Helfgott spent his adult life promoting Holocaust education, meeting with national leaders in the UK to promote cultural integration and peace.[3]

Biography

Helfgott was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland. He was 9 years old when Germany invaded the country in 1939. In 1942, he initially convinced the Nazis that he was ethnically Polish, and not a Jew. He was eventually sent to a concentration camp. Initially sent to Buchenwald, Helfgott survived the Holocaust. He was liberated in 1945, but was very weak. He was among 732 orphan refugees under the age of 16 brought to England after the war by CBF World Jewish Relief after being l

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