Holocaust jewels get a TV showing

In 1944, Szuszie Kalmar was captured when the Nazis invaded her town on the Hungarian-Romanian border. Her father buried the family jewels in their garden before they were taken to Auschwitz. Szuszie escaped a death march and returned to her family home to redeem the jewel stash, including her ring.

But in 1958, the ring was nearly lost again when the Communist Romanian government allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel, on condition that all belongings were disowned.

"My grandmother came to Israel with nothing except for her clothes. But she managed to smuggle the jewellery out of Romania," Ms Kalmar said.

"She gave me the ring a year-and-a-half ago on Rosh Hashanah, six months before she died.

"The main thing about objects is that they serve as tools to remember and you can pass them and their stories to your children."

The current series has featured a Manchester woman whose family's Art Deco watch had been returned after her aunt perished in Auschwitz. The platinum and diamond-encrusted timepiece was worth up to £3,000.

But Ms Kalmar said: "I think more than the real value of the ring is the message in our stories and to have them told.

"In Israel you hear these stories all the time, but in Britain it's rarer."