David Baddiel has admitted wanting to punch a Holocaust denier in the face while filming a BBC documentary.
The comedian, whose Jewish mother and grandparents fled Nazi Germany, met staunch denier Dermot Mulqueen for a documentary marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps.
Academics advised Baddiel, 55, to steer clear, warning the meeting might fuel anti-Semitism.
But the comic and author decided to go ahead – and even shook the denier’s hand.
Baddiel said: “I didn’t want to. But at some level, a bloke puts his hand out and not to shake it feels weird… so I did.”
The presenter met the Irishman as he struggled to understand how one in six people worldwide think the Holocaust was exaggerated or deny it took place.
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During their three-hour meeting, Mulqueen took out a guitar, performed anti-Jewish songs and made outlandish and inaccurate claims.
Baddiel said: “One of the weirdest moments of my life [was] sitting there listening to those songs. But it’s very important to understand – however mad Dermot seems… People believe this s**t.” The presenter admitted he felt anxious before the meeting, and said: “To some extent I just want[ed] to punch this bloke in the face.”
He added: “I felt very nervous because it touches on a deep part of me.
“My mother was born in Nazi Germany, my grandparents just got out in 1939, so I’m only here by the skin of my teeth.
“And as I grow older, the reality of that becomes more clear to me. So I find a great sadness but also a rage in me when I think about people saying it didn’t happen.
“I feel a little bit out of control about how I’m going to react to it.
“And that’s weird when you’re making a TV programme because you don’t usually feel those emotions. It was very hard going.”
Baddiel’s time with Mulqueen left him shaking so much he drank a whole glass of beer in one go. “I don’t normally drink, but I felt I needed that.”
And he said in the end he felt sorry for Mulqueen, and for his distorted view of the world.
For the BBC2 documentary, which airs on Monday, Baddiel also visited the site of Chelmno Nazi death camp in Poland, of which there were few survivors.
The Nazis used acid, explosives and napalm to eradicate every trace of the slaughter they committed there.
Remains of some 200,000 Jews burned there were used as farm fertiliser.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Baddiel said: “At its very, very basic level, the best form of Holocaust denial was just to kill everyone. Because then no one tells the story.”
*Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel BBC2, Monday, 9pm.
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