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Excess Baggage: Family History - Paraguay

Family History - Paraguay

18/09/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Excess Baggage, Family History - Paraguay

Sandi Toksvig finds out about travelling to trace family history, and life in Paraguay.

Sandi Toksvig meets Martin Davidson who went to Germany and Rob Curling who visited Malaysia to trace their family histories, and talks to Margaret Hebblethwaite about Paraguay.

Sandi Toksvig meets two people who travelled to research their family histories. Television executive Martin Davidson knew his German grandfather must have fought in the Second World War but was shocked when he discovered him to have been a member of the SS. He went to Berlin, Prague and Prussia to try and understand what had driven him to become such an enthusiastic and unrepentant Nazi. Sports presenter Rob Curling's father was also a soldier but served with the Gurkhas during the emergency in Malaya in the fifties. He was drawn to travel to modern day Malaysia to discover more about that period of his parents' life and the country where he himself was born.

Sandi also talks to theologian and 'freelance missionary' Margaret Hebblethwaite about why she started a hotel in southern Paraguay and how she came to write the first and only English guide book dedicated to this little known country.

Producer: Harry Parker.

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