Impressionist Jess Robinson: at 23, my Jewish grandmother was fleeing Hitler
By Hannah Stephenson, PA
When comedian and impressionist Jess Robinson decided to dig into the archives of her German Jewish ancestry, she found an unlikely shared sense of identity with her maternal grandmother, who had lived through the Holocaust.
At 23, Robinson, now a regular on shows including Dead Ringers, Spitting Image, and Horrible Histories, was then struggling with a fledging acting career.
At 23, her German Jewish grandmother, Rosi Schul, a teacher, documented in her diary how she was deported to Poland by the Gestapo, suffering and witnessing the horrors of the treatment of her countrymen by the Nazis.
So forms the juxtaposition of Robinson’s book, Life Is Rosi, as the diary entries of each woman’s life experiences at a particular moment in time – Grandma Rosi’s from 1938 to 1943, Robinson’s running concurrently from 2006 – are compared and contrasted.
Rosi suffered the horrific internment in the Polish town of ZbÄ szyÅ, where she stayed more than six months. Robinson, at the same age, was trying to sort out a mortgage. There’s a lot of gallows humour.
“She was so stoic and so compassionate, and that compassion and her love for children really saved her life,” says Robinson.
The book blends humour and seriousness, exploring how both women coped with trauma in their young lives. Robinson suffered sexual harassment by a director and an assault by a taxi driver, which she didn’t report.
Rosi saw Jews “being herded like farm animals” as they were loaded on to each lorry and “the filthy, stinking barn, lying on damp straw, everyone squashed together like animals, not human beings…”
Today, Robinson realises how humbling her grandmother’s recollections were.
“At 23, I was obsessing over my weight and debating whether or not a red cardigan would help manifest my wildly vacuous dreams. At 23, Rosi was being wrenched from her life and praying she’d see her family again,” she writes.
But there were some similarities in their emotional experiences, finding romantic interludes, love and lust. And in the same way her grandmother had been stoic and uncomplaining at 23, so was Robinson.
“I found a lot of compassion for my younger self as well. There was one point when I was told I looked too Jewish for roles and then other times I wasn’t Jewish enough, and at that time I would just nod and go, ‘Okay, thank your for having me,’ because I’ve always been told to be a good girl, keep your head down and don’t make a fuss.”
Robinson decided to write the book during the pandemic. Her father had just died, she recalls.
“I’ve got this thing, which I think Rosi had and my mum has, which is, keep busy, keep going. It was just in my anxiousness to keep busy, keep moving forward.”
As the world had stopped, she decided to investigate her German ancestry, coming across her grandmother’s diaries, although she always knew about her story and how she had escaped the Nazis.
in August 1939, Rosi accompanied a group of children on a Kindertransport, finally settling in England while the war raged on.
“I wonder if I would have been able to show that same dignity and drive and stoicism,” Robinson says.
“She was quite open talking about her experiences but she did always fob them off, saying it was just a big adventure and that she didn’t suffer like other people because she escaped to Britain.”
Men abusing power was a theme which crossed both women’s paths – the Nazis with Rosi and some unsavoury showbiz characters with Robinson, including a ‘director’ who said she’d need to strip naked and loosen up to get the part.
“I remember feeling outside of my body, looking above myself. My best friend said it was a trauma response. I was so unbelievably naïve. It was only once I got out the door and was running and got home that it all kicked in.”
She didn’t report it, felt it was her own fault. “I wonder what they would have done back then anyway, because it’s nearly 20 years ago.”
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement, she says: “I have thought about other times when I haven’t got parts because people expected stuff of me. I either didn’t pick up on it at the time or I didn’t do it anyway.”
There were other times when she felt vulnerable. “After that, I always told my friend where I was going and what time and to call me if I didn’t get back by a particular time.”
Today, Robinson lives in Brighton with her second husband, musician Jonty Fisher, who she describes as “unbelievably kind, supportive and steady” and has had a huge amount of therapy, particularly on her body image.
As for her grandmother’s story, she reveals that in the past she has tried to pitch it as a documentary, tried to get herself on Who Do You Think You Are?, even pitched it as a TV sitcom.
In the end, she decided to write a book about it. All this happened while she was trying to obtain German dual citizenship as she wanted to work in Europe.
“Writing the book has been a bit of a coming-of-age-at-40 experience,” she muses. Now 43, she feels it has made her more resilient.
A former semi-finalist on Britain’s Got Talent – Robinson did singing impressions of Kate Bush, Lily Allen and Adele, among others – she says: “Like so many performers, part of doing it is to get the applause so you feel better about yourself. It’s a cycle of ‘Am I good enough?’
“I think it helped raise my profile and it also made every gig I’ve done since not as scary. I’ve performed at the Palladium, at the Royal Albert Hall, and no gig, no live show, has ever been as scary as doing that live semi-final.”
With a fine singing voice, she appeared in the theatre production of Little Voice, and then a fellow actress found her an introduction to the producer of Radio 4’s Dead Ringers. She went on to stage her own impression shows and has voiced for Disney, DreamWorks and Netflix, appearing at Edinburgh Festival Fringe annually and becoming a regular face on the Channel 4 hit The Last Leg.
Her latest regional tour, Your Song – Elton Reimagined, features Elton John songs reimagined in the voices of some of her favourite icons, including Kate Bush, Billie Eilish, and Amy Winehouse.
However, writing the book is her greatest triumph, she says.
“I feel like it’s the first thing I’ve done in my career that’s of note.”
A formidable character who cared deeply about appearance and was sharp and guarded, Rosi was a few days shy of 103 when she died in 2018. Robinson thinks her grandmother would have approved of the book.
“I think, especially with what is happening in the world at the moment and the parallels that we are seeing all over the world, that she would feel it was important that we didn’t forget.”
