Background
Ben Helfgott was born in Pabianice, Lodz, Poland.
Ben Helfgott was born in Pabianice, Lodz, Poland.
He is one of two Jewish athletes to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust. He was 10 years old when the Nazis invaded the country in 1939. In 1942 with the help of Andrew Janotta he convinced the Nazis that he was Polish and not a Jew.
He was eventually sent to a concentration camp, but in 1945 he was released, but he was understandably weak.
Initially sent to Buchenwald, Helfgott survived the Holocaust and was sent to England after the war with 700 other youngsters after being liberated from Theresienstadt. When in England, he set up a Jewish youth club
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 2010, Helfgott was one of five British Jews interviewed for an exhibit at the London Jewish Museum exploring "different ways of being Jewish."
As a guest on the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme on 1 April 2007, he chose to be stranded with a copy of Bertrand Russell"s History of Western Philosophy and a bar with two discs for weight training.