Christopher Biggins, having been removed from Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother house for making a “joke” about the Holocaust, is to visit Nazi concentration camps from the Second World War.
To make amends, Biggins is planning to turn a trip to Krakow in Poland into a pilgrimage to the camps, including nearby Auschwitz where more than a million people were killed.
The 67-year-old actor caused a furore last week when he told former X Factor star Katie Waissel, who is Jewish: “You better be careful or they’ll be putting you in a shower and taking you to a room.”
He’s since apologised to Waissel. “I found Katie and said ‘I am mortified,’” he told The Sun. “’I would never do anything to upset you. I love you and I’m really sorry.’
“I am mortified by what’s happened, really mortified. Most of my friends, in fact, are Jewish. I apologised to Big Brother and Katie.”
Speaking to The Sun, Biggins said: “I am going there. It will be my first time. I know it’s going to be horrible. I know it’s going to be ghastly. I know it’s going to be emotional.
“Before I went into the [Big Brother] house, my partner Neil and I were talking about it because we just feel the whole scenario of the Jewish annihilation is so horrific that we wanted to experience it for ourselves.
“We’re going for five days in October. I’m really looking forward to it. Especially now after this incident.”
Biggins, who won ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here in 2007, was one of the favourites to win this year’s Celebrity Big Brother.