A BBC Antiques Roadshow expert refused to value a Second World War painting due to its back story.Source: Antiques Roadshow, BBC
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The sitter is my uncle, Father Dan Cummings, and he was a redemptorist priest.
00:06 And when the World War II broke out, Ireland were neutral, but then they got a request for chaplains.
00:13 So Dan volunteered and joined the British Army, and he was part of the liberation forces at Belsen.
00:20 And of course, as we now know, Belsen was one of the very large concentration camps in the
00:26 north of Germany, and it was one of the first to be liberated by British troops.
00:31 We usually do put a value on things, but I'm not going to put a monetary value on it today,
00:35 because it is so much more important than that. Because of its connection with Belsen, because of
00:41 your uncles being someone from Belfast who was there at the moment of liberation of Belsen,
00:48 it has so much more of an important social historical context.
00:52 Thank you for sharing Father Dan's story with us.