TV funnyman Matt Lucas has expressed the shock he felt after finding out a relative of his had a link to Anne Frank - and even gets a mention in her world famous diary. Matt, a former University of Bristol student, made the discovery during an appearance on BBC One's popular Who Do You Think You Are? show.
During the programme, Matt travelled to Amsterdam - where Anne's family and some of their friends famously tried to hide during the Second World War from Jew-persecuting Nazis - to find out about his German-born Jewish grandmother Margot's aunts and cousins during the Holocaust. It was during this trip that Matt found out one his ancestors is actually mentioned in Anne's diary.
It was revealed that Werner Goldschmidt, Matt's grandmother's cousin, lodged with the Frank family, the Mirror reports. He also namechecked in the book, which was published posthumously in 1947 after Anne died from typhus fever at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two years earlier, aged 15.
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Asked if he was surprised by the link, The Great British Bake Off co-host said: "Yes, my ancestor would have known Anne Frank, the writer of one of the most important books ever written. And Werner is actually mentioned in the diary.
"It's the one story everyone knows if you know no other story, that story about what happened to the Jews in World War Two, you know the story of the Frank family. I read it when I was younger and never realised she was talking about a relative of mine."
Werner lived with the Franks in their family home before they went into hiding in concealed rooms at the top of the building where Anne's father Otto worked in the Dutch capital in 1942. Before leaving for their hiding space, which is now a popular tourist attraction, the Franks left Werner instructions to give their pet cat to a neighbour, which gets a mention in the diary.
"He didn't necessarily know that they were about to go into hiding, so he was lurking around slightly unwelcome the night before they were going," Matt said. "He wasn't to know this momentous event was taking place."
During the episode, the Little Britain comic also visits Berlin to find out more about his grandmother Margot, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939 for the UK. Matt, 48, said he was close to his grandmother, who died in 1999, and that he was told about some of his family dying in concentration camps, but had not found out more details until now.
Matt said: "It's terrible. Where you are born and what your religion is, that lottery determines your fate, and it is not a lottery you even choose to play.
"My grandmother never talked about her cousins, but I think she knew what had happened to them. I'd been told in the vaguest terms that my family had died in the camps, but I had never been told their names and I never knew the details.
"There is always a risk as a Jew that, because this is recent history, it could happen again. It is so important to tell these stories."
Discussing finding out about the tragic deaths his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis, Matt said he still felt fortunate he was able to learn more about what happened. "I think when you grow up, you just take the older figures in your family at face value and you don't really grill them on what they did before you knew them; you live in the present," he said.
"My grandmother always made it clear how proud she was of me. And now I'm proud of her.
"So I feel very lucky that I have had this opportunity to learn about my family history and to reconnect with Grandma Margot, who was such a big part of my life. It helps keep her alive for me, because I really miss her."
Matt's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? will be broadcast on BBC One at 9pm on June 16.
