Woman's Hour - Opera arias reinvented, Holocaust survivor Rachel Levy

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

We’re all too familiar with operatic heroines, dying tragically on stage. The arias they sing are often completely beautiful, the skill of the composers not in doubt, but the stereotyping does modern women no service. It’s a dilemma that award winning, all women string quartet Zaïde address in a new project entitled No(s) Dames. They have teamed up with counter tenor Théophile Alexandre to showcase arias of tragic heroines by seventeen different composers. The twist is that it is male Theophile who sings the arias. First violinist Charlotte Maclet joins Emma.Today is National Holocaust Memorial Day and the Prince of Wales, as chairman of the National Holocaust Memorial Trust has commissioned the portraits of seven Holocaust survivors all of them now in their nineties, whose childhoods were spent surviving the Nazis. The portraits will be displayed at the Queen's Gallery as a living memorial to the six million innocent men, women and children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and whose stories will never be told. A 60-minute BBC Two documentary Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust will air tonight at 9 pm and has followed the creation of the artworks and the relationship between artists and sitters. Emma is joined by one of the survivors - Rachel Levy - who was painted by the artist Stuart Pearson Wright.Image: Quatuor Zaïde quartet with Théophile Alexandre Credit: Julien Benhamou

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. It's masks off today in England as the Covid rules change again. Secondary school students no longer wearing them in classrooms or communal areas. Face coverings not legally required in any other setting, although a lot of establishments will still encourage and request them. Studies have found that men are more reluctant than women to wear them. One survey done towards the beginning of the pandemic said women were almost twice as likely as men to say they

intended to wear a mask outside of their home when the rules were not mandatory to wear them. Well, that's back where we are. Is that your experience? Is that what you've seen? However anecdotal or whatever you want to say about it, I want to hear. We are back to personal choice, certainly in England, and shortly we'll help you with the science side of it. But what is your feeling today with regards to those particular rule changes in England? Also, I don't know if you saw this, but it caught our eye. A new study from Cardiff University looking at women's responses to men in masks, commissioned by the psychology part of the university, shows it's changed during the course of the pandemic. Apparently, researchers found women rated men's faces as more attractive when covered with a surgical style mask. Make of that what you will. And apparently it's being done the other way around to get men's take on women's faces and the blue surgical masks coming out top for the most

attractive so from the serious to the less so your take please 84844 is the number you need to text here at women's hour text will be charged your standard message rate get in touch with me in the program on social media at bbc women's hour or email me through the women's hour website also on today's program do you know the difference between a vagina and a vulva? Help is on hand. And the women of the Gilded Age of America, why do we need to care now that they're back in the spotlight? All shall be revealed. But first, today is National Holocaust Memorial Day and the Prince of Wales, as chairman of the National Holocaust Memorial Trust, has commissioned the portraits of seven Holocaust survivors,

all of them now in their 90s, whose childhoods were spent surviving the Nazis. The portraits will be displayed at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace as a living memorial to the six million innocent Jewish men, women and children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and whose stories will never be told. A 60-minute BBC Two documentary called Survivors, Portraits of the Holocaust will air tonight at 9 o'clock and has followed the creation of these artworks

and the relationship that's developed between artists and sitters. Well, joining me now is one of those survivors, 91-year-old Rachel Levy, who was painted by the artist Stuart Pearson Wright. Good morning and welcome to the programme, artist Stuart Pearson Wright. Good morning and welcome to the programme, Rachel. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me. What was it like to be painted by Stuart? Well, I didn't actually sit for the painting. Stuart started this at the beginning of the pandemic and so we got a special room in Jewish care and just us he took photographs and then took these photographs away and he painted from the

photographs kept me informed most of the time and I knew what was happening it's a long time now yes well I'm sitting here looking at the finished thing uh on on my screen and you know I think it's incredibly striking I realize we've only just met though and sometimes people have a different reaction when they see a painting of themselves what was your reaction well being a woman and I still vein, as my daughter calls me, perhaps I thought he could have left some of those lines out or improved them. But he's not. It's not a Hollywood picture. It's a true picture. And the painting is, I believe, but people who know more about painting than I do admire it. I think it's wonderful but as I expected you would have a different perhaps response about

exactly how you've been shown. You're wearing a beautiful striking yellow scarf on the picture. That also really stands out as part of it and also you've got your medal on your chest there, your British Empire medal,

which you were awarded for your services to Holocaust education. Correct, yes. I was awarded that by, yes, encouraged by the council and institute that I was teaching at for many years in South London, in Lewisham, exactly. They appreciated what I had done all the years. And they encouraged me, encouraged the medal and a few others. And yes, I'm great of them now. I was so glad to display it whenever I can, so I did. Why not? Why not indeed?

And it's a medal for for being able to tell a story that you you know no one would want to have to tell but you have made it part of your your life's work to do so. Yeah I've been around the schools of South London and not North London very little North London but schools of all ages, starting from seven-year-olds, which was more horrifying to me, actually, than the seven-year-olds. They're very, very good to listen and they're very good. I was more nervous than they were, for sure. But they appreciated it. And I went on from there to

all ages up to university students, rotaries, old age people, sorry my age people I should say and yes I did my best. It's not easy. It's not easy. I get the date when I'm going to speak and it's with me constantly. I don't forget. It churns me out more. And I suffer a bit before and then I suffer more afterwards. Because as I understand it, Rachel, if I may, you didn't start talking about what had happened to you until quite late on in your life. Very much so. It was nearly 50 years before I opened up. I was married. I had my children and I still hadn't spoken. And my

husband didn't hear and I hadn't told him. He was well aware that there was a Holocaust and he knew I had been in camps. He also knew that my nights were disturbed because I used to wake him sometimes crying or screaming and he would say, well, tell me what it was and I couldn't talk about it. He didn't hear that, my story, until I told it to other people. We'll come to perhaps why you started to choose to do that,

but I think it's possibly a good moment to talk about your story and what you do say about it. You were born in Butz, a tiny mountain village in what was then rural Czechoslovakia. And as I understand it, it was your father who first disappeared. Yes, my father, together with all the young men, and he was a young man just in the 40s. And yes, he was taken away first and left us.

We were five children. My mother managed everything. She also ran a little shop. And we survived for a while there in the village. But then we heard by word of mouth that we were going to be collected by the Nazis. And we were hidden by our neighbors, non-Jewish people. And they hid us well enough for us not to be found. And we got left in the village a little longer, until 1944.

And then they tried to hide us again, but they were threatened and they had to give us up. I've never, ever blamed that on them because they were frightened and some were beaten up for hiding Jews. So, yes, we appreciated their kindness and they were very good to us Where you ended up going was Auschwitz and you were separated from your mother Immediately once we got there

when we got out of the trucks they pushed us into which was horrific the journey was horrific in the trucks no sanitation, no air, young and old together, children crying. It was horrific. We got to, well, which was Auschwitz.

I must tell you, I was 13 years old and knew very little where we were going, in fact fact nothing. We got out and the Gestapo were there ready to receive us and push us about and select and that's when they selected my brother and myself to go one way and my mother with my two little sisters and little baby brother in her arm, the other way. So they disappeared. And I was still ignorant where they were going or where we were going. But once we got into the camp, we were treated, herded, I should say, herded. And we were showered and we were given uniforms.

Everything we wore, we had no parcels with us, but everything we wore they took away, shaved our heads. Everybody had their heads shaved. I saw my brother then, only for a short while, and he was taken to the men's section and I was in the women's section and saw him again the next morning once and then I hadn't seen him till after the war. And your everyday life in the camp, what can you remember about that? Fear, hunger, cold, freezing, being taken out every morning counted

and standing there to be counted. Fear of being selected. And this happened regularly. Dr. Mengele, Joseph Mengele, would stand there with his partner in crime, with Emma Kraser, select us by look. We had to be stripped naked in front of them. And they would examine the body to see if we were healthy looking, if the skin was healthy and treated very badly and selected. I was selected once to go out to the gas chambers.

We knew what was happening then, of course. And with a friend, I had a friend, a school friend with me. And we went together in the row, and we were hoarded in front of the gate of going out, that famous gate that everybody sees to Auschwitz. If you went through that gate, that was the end. But we were, for some reason reason held up near the kitchens and somebody created a noise and then there were shots.

And Zeldie said, come, come. And we both were running to other people who were delivering food at the time. And we hung on to the same churns they were carrying with the soup and that's how I got back to the block that I was in which was a miracle yes it was so near the end of the war because things were getting lax a bit in the camps and they were still counting us and I had problems with that problems in counting but we moved about during the time they were

counting and cheated them out of it so that I stayed alive still I was about to say you were mentioning there towards the end of the war at this point and you were forced later to march to Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Yeah, that was when we heard the aircraft and they emptied the camp out. And we then marched.

We had a short time in another camp on the way where we were digging ditches. And then we marched day and night with very little clothes on it was autumn it was cold it was no food very little food the guards were with us and then towards the end they were hungry as well they were neglected as well and we didn't have any food at all and we used to run out into fields that we could gather the potatoes that the farmers might have left behind or the turnips or anything that was in the leftover from the gathering of the vegetables and so on and we had to throw, we didn't have any food till we got to Belsen, Bergen-Belsen and we looked at skeletons

we were skeletons by then as well we got very little food for a short time and then food ran out and we were neglected in the blocks that's where I found my my's sister, my auntie, and she was already getting ill, and she said,

come stay with me, and I went into the hut that she was in. We were sleeping on the floor with no covering, very little clothes on, as I said. We were crawling with lice. Our bodies were covered in lice. There was no care at the end of it. There was nothing. There was no clean water.

My auntie was getting very ill and very burning up, and she started being angry with me that I didn't bring her water. But there was no water to be had and I couldn't walk anymore anyway. One night she died and I woke up and she was dead. They took her out, the same as all the others, and threw her on the heap. And I had to live on and watch that heap in front of our house. I'm so grateful that you feel you can speak to us about this. And there's so many questions, not you know you did survive somehow and you are

talking to us today liberated we were liberated by the british who came in unbelievable unbelievable we begged for food and they threw us their food rations, which turned out to be corned beef. We ate it. And of course, it upset our stomachs. We had no stomachs for corned beef. And then they took us out of there. First, the army brought in the nurses and doctors, and they gave us care. And then they brought in fresh water, and we could queue and drink fresh water.

And no time at all, they took us out of there. And we went into a big building, a barracks of some sort. And that's where the nurses went to work, on our heads, because we were still very lousy. We were crawling with lice and they cut our hair off. Some of us had their hair cut off again because we couldn't cope with the lice. And from there, we were taken eventually. We got food and we recovered a bit and we were taken to Prague on trains. And that was our liberation.

When we got to Prague, there was a whole organisation, a Jewish organisation that took care of us in centres. And remarkably, you were reunited with your brother and brought to Britain as one of the boys, which is the kind of collective name for this largely male group, but you were also part of it. Yes, there's some girls and boys. Actually, we were all together, the whole group was 731

and divided into groups. Actually, we were all together, the whole group was 731, and divided into groups. Some went to Britain, to England. My group went to Ireland, just outside Belfast, where it was great. We were free and we were given wonderful food. We had our own organisation there. We had counsellors and we had doctors. And we had teachers to start teaching us English. None of us spoke English.

We all spoke, our main language between us was Yiddish. And so there was Polish, there was Hungarians and Czechs and some that didn't speak any of the languages except Yiddish. So we were given beginning lessons and we learned beginning English. And we had clean clothes and we had clean beds to sleep in. And we got humanised. How important was it to be able to be back with a member of your family and to be able to talk about those who hadn't?

Long story, my brother found me, but he found me on the farm where I was deposited because I had nowhere else to go. I hadn't found anybody. He found me. He took me away from there and we eventually joined the group. How important was it? He was the only one I found.

My father had never been heard of again. My mother, I knew, had gone the wrong way where they went straight to the gas chambers for the children. I knew by then all the horrors. And to find my brother, that was just the ultimate. And I said to him, the first thing I said to him, well, let's go home. We've got a house. Let's go back to our village.

And he said, no, no, no. I've already been there to look for you and for any other family. There's nobody there for us. People have got occupied our house. We have no house. We have nobody. You'll never go back there, he said.

We won't go back. On Holocaust Memorial Day, what do you do? Do you light a candle? Do you think of your family? We light candles. We talk about it. I talk long before the day itself, before Holocaust Day. I go to schools and talk.

And anybody who invites me, I go to talk. And I try to talk to young children. And there's a very good, there was a man in charge of my organising my speaking and he was great. He was Mark Curtis and the Lewisham Borough employed him specially to do that, to train us how to go to talk, not only to talk, but train the children to reenact our stories and tell the stories over and over again. And the kids were wonderful. They would take our names and play the parts.

And we used to see them like a theatre piece on the stage. And you get different interpretations, of course. But Mark was great. He really did well, encouraging us to talk and encouraging the children to listen and understand what that meant, what it meant that people could turn on another generation of people of all ages and just treat people like they did in the camps

and the centres and the ghettos and marking people's arms with numbers like animals and treating us not as human beings. Yes, and it's a message that we can only have from your generation for only for so long now, which is why it's so important to have told your story to the younger generation. So if you've heard a witness, you can be a witness, as Elie Wiesel said, the survivor.

That's right. Correct. Well, life got better, of course, once we were in Britain and then I came to London as well. My brother suffered TB. He was taken away to St sanatorium straight away when we got to England. And if he hadn't come here, he would have died. There was no point staying on anywhere in Europe. He would have just died. And he had this wonderful treatment in England. And England has been fantastic to all of us. And we have made our lives here and became British

and did good jobs. We all did jobs. We all did whatever we could. Rachel Levy, thank you very much for talking to us today. And a lot of people are going to see your face on television this evening as well.

Thank you. Your painted face and the real face as well thank you uh your paint your paint your painted face and and the real face as well my my family presence wonderful family that i have got here i know and i'm sure that they're incredibly proud of you continuing to to share your story like you are this morning with us here on women's hour rachel levy all the best thank you very much for talking to us thank Thank you. Many messages coming in with regards to what you've just heard from Rachel talking about how important it is to hear what she has to say. Tina says, I'm crying and I'm humbled to listen to the brave, gentle Rachel

Levy to have experienced and survived the hell of concentration camps. It is unimaginable for most of us. Racism is a cancer to condemn an entire race to death for their heritage or skin colour. It is evil. And more messages. Nicola also saying she's listening in tears. Her testimony is so powerful. Just how any nation can behave like this to its own people is still so shocking. We must never forget on National Holocaust Memorial Day. You are also getting in touch this morning with regards to rule changes in England and what those will mean with regards to masks. The change, of course, is part of the government's decision to lift Plan B coronavirus measures in England.

The government recommends that people wear face coverings in enclosed or private spaces. But this will now be a personal judgment. For instance, the London mayor, also Sadiq Khan, has confirmed masks will remain mandatory on transport services, transport for London, including tubes. Some retailers across the country, John Lewis, Sainsbury's have also asked staff and customers to keep wearing face coverings. And previous research, as I mentioned right at the beginning of the programme, has suggested women are more likely to carry on wearing masks than men. Well, let's get into some of this now and also what the science is about this. If it's being left more to personal choice, we'd like you to be armed with the facts. Professor Robert West, a member of the behavioural advisory group on SAGE, the scientific group that advises the government,

and also Professor Christina Pagel, a member of the independent SAGE group. If I could start with you, Robert, I just wanted to back up that side of things about men and women, because it has, as you may imagine, prompted a response from our listeners. Do you see that difference, and what do you know about it? Yes, first of all, I have to say I'm speaking in a personal capacity. Yes, the evidence is that on most of the protective measures that women are more adherent than men, which I guess your listeners won't find surprising. I think, however, there's also an issue as norms change around what's going to happen. And what we've seen is that even when the rules have said that you don't have to wear masks, for example, the attitude to wearing masks has still remained very positive. But the behaviour has tended to drift. And what happens is you find

yourself in a situation where you may be the only person wearing a mask and you tend to stop wearing it. And this is something that, you know, we have to be very careful of. And I think your listeners particularly need to sort of think ahead about situations they're going to be in and say, OK, you know, I'm going to wear a mask, FFP2 or FFP3, because that will protect me as well as other people and plan ahead for that and sort of, in a sense, insulate them. What was the FF? Oh, yeah. So the masks that are more effective are known as FFP2 and FFP3. And the reason is that they, you know, they have better coverage, there's better leakage around the side or less leakage around the side. And so if you want to protect yourself, as well as other people, particularly, then those are ones I think to really

go for. But I do think that people now are in a situation where they're having to make judgments about how safe environments are going to be and how they can make sure that they're properly protected in those environments. Do you agree with making masks optional? No, I don't. I think it was a mistake. It's a very odd decision from a public health point of view. And I think, unfortunately, with the way things go, it will lead to more infections than would otherwise have been the case, more hospitalisations and more deaths. And so I don't think that the balance of, you know, of pros and cons really goes in favour of relaxing those restrictions. Can I just read you this message, Professor Robert West,

before I come to Professor Christina Pagel? It says, I'm so happy we can now choose for ourselves. Masks are largely ineffective when used by non-medics anyway, and everyone who knows anything about viruses knows nothing will stop it spreading or mutating. That's what they do. We need to learn to live with it. I'm not surprised more women wear masks than men.

It's a fact, sadly, that women are more compliant, less questioning and less likely to take risks. A very strong view there, which I can see reflected in other messages. What would you say to that person? It's nonsense. It's just simply, you know, doesn't accord with the evidence. When this whole thing started, the evidence was equivocal

on mask wearing. And I was certainly saying, you know, we'd done a systematic review looking at the effectiveness of mask wearing and the randomised trial evidence, you know, you could say, well, you couldn't say positive or negative. But now the evidence is really strong, really strong. It doesn't just protect other people. It also protects you. And all this nonsense about the size of particles and so on, it's really just a load of guff and people shouldn't be taken in by it. Really a load of guff.

If you're talking about what you need to say about to people, you've heard that from Professor Robert West, direct quote. Professor Christina Pagel, good morning. Morning. Where are you on this Pagel, good morning. Morning. Where are you on this in terms of, as I say, that's not just one message I'm getting. We have people who are very happy about this messaging in the programme today, men and women. I mean, it is a political decision. There is no public health reason to remove masks at this stage.

And we haven't seen any science advice that suggests it. There's not in any of the stage minutes. In fact, they advise keeping plan B. We know that masks work. If anything, as Robert says, we should be moving to the higher grade masks in America. President Biden has literally just made 400 million free high quality masks available at pharmacies because it's recognized that they work and they work and they enable people to take part in public life they enable people to go out especially people who feel more vulnerable because it's not just you as as we're saying if other people aren't wearing a mask it makes them much more awkward for you to wear

when I feel more awkward when I see lots of people not wearing it and I feel much more comfortable going out to shops to to work public transport transport, museums, everything, if I know that, you know, there's a reason for me to wear a mask and that, and the government mandate gives you that reason. And, you know, we know that they work. So I don't quite understand why, why there's this kind of big feeling against it. And you may be getting messages, but all the polling shows that the public's actually quite happy to wear masks. No, no, I mean, we are getting those as well. I just wanted to try and read out one which kind of epitomised

why some people have actually justified it to themselves that they might not need to and feel backed up, I suppose, by the government. I mean, Jenny from Norfolk's written in saying, I'm just reading the updated, dated 25th of January 2022, government guidance on wearing masks. The top statement says there's no longer a legal requirement, but then they suggest you continue to do so in crowded and enclosed spaces. However, lower down, it says there are places where you must wear a face covering by law, including shops, post office, pharmacies, petrol stations, public transport and many more. So why are you saying that we don't have to?

I mean, of course, I've tried to cover a bit of that. But I suppose the other side of this, Christina, is some people are going to be confused by the messaging. Yeah, I mean, the messaging is kind of that it's over and it feels really odd to have that messaging when we're still at, you know, 90 or 100,000 cases a day because it isn't over. We are seeing fewer hospitalisations,

but we're still seeing, you know, almost 10% of teachers were off sick last week. We're still seeing massive disruption when people being off sick, they can't work or people having to be at home to care for their children if they're sick. We're seeing growing epidemic in children. In fact, that is now going through

to their parents' generation. So it's not over. And we know that there are things that can help, things like masks, things like working from home if you can, and so on. And really, even beyond this wave, we have to think about the next wave. How are we going to stop having this mass disruption

every six to seven months? We need to think about infrastructure, about clean air. How do we make indoor spaces safer for us to be in, as safe as outdoor spaces? We can do it. It's a technological solution to it, as outdoor spaces. We can do it. It's a technological solution to it, but we have to want to do it. And it is a big infrastructure investment. A few more messages. To be honest, whether you think they work or not, is it really that

difficult to put a mask on just to be considerate for other people, get a grip? And another one here saying, no surprise, women react more favourably to men in blue masks. We tend to be more cautious and want to protect others. Many people still need to continue wearing masks, for example, like me, because I'm about to have an operation in which I will be cancelled if I, it will be cancelled, excuse me, if I contract COVID. But one here saying masks are damaging for child development in under fives. I'm so sick of people talking like they're a benign intervention. I've no argument with the efficacy against virus transmission, but that is a big, big vital negative. Do you have anything to say on that, Christina,

of concerns about the social side of this and development? I mean, that might be a question more for Robert than for me. I mean, in terms of, I assume they mean adults wearing masks around under five. I think that's right to extrapolate that. Yeah. I mean, that's not something I'm an expert in. Well, let's bring in Robert. Robert, let me put that to you. Robert, what do you say to that? It's a plausible argument, but there isn't evidence that suggests that.

I think that, you know, all of these things are always a risk benefit analysis. And where you have very, very clear evidence that you can save illnesses, protect the economy, save lives and allow people to go about their business by doing something. And then you've got an idea which is unsupported by evidence that there are particular risks associated with that. Well, which way are you going to go? You've got to go with the evidence, otherwise it's irrational. And have you seen with looking at behaviours that there are certain people, and I don't know if it falls more into men or women, who are the people who try and get others to wear masks?

We've talked about this on the programme before, and some people have sent in brilliant suggestions and moments that they've had with people. I recently tried it with a group. It went extremely badly. It was a huge group of younger people and they all told me that they were exempt. None of them had the badge and I felt like a complete idiot because I couldn't then go, well, are you? I just had to sort of leave it. But I tried it inspired by some of our listeners' suggestions. So what do we know about how you can get others to wear masks? It's very tricky. I mean, this is a big question generally in public health. You know,

my main area is smoking. And I often get asked, how do you get your partner to stop smoking? And it's, you know, it is a tricky question. I think always, you know, there's certain principles. One is always to be respectful. You know if you if you put yourself in in oppositional confrontation with people then that's definitely not the way to go um you always have to accept you know accept that people have agency they have their own views on things and so where possible it's always best to try to um get people to do things because they want to rather than they need to um and but but, I mean, the other thing I think is planning ahead for situations where you're going to find yourself so that you yourself can feel at least as comfortable as you can in doing the right thing. And you're not sort of caught out and

caught by surprise and find yourself, you know, let's say not wearing a mask purely because of the social pressure. Just finally, do you think coming back to the male-female divide on this and what we know about it, which there is one, do you think this is going to become a divide in society now it's gone back, certainly in England, to making a decision for yourself? I think it'll become more of a divide. I think that we haven't seen in this country the kind of political divide that mask wearing, you know, became in the United States. So it hasn't become a sort of talisman in that way. And we have a different mentality. So I doubt if it will, you know, become a major thing. I think what, you know, really what we need is for, you know, people who want to wear masks and people who, for whatever

reason, say that they don't want to, for everyone to treat each other with respect and to respect each other's views. And, you know, if the opportunity arises to have a discussion about it and if we do it that way, then it'll be OK. Well, we try to create a forum where everybody can say what they want about this and ask the questions as well. And we have a question here from Annie, which is also coming from Caro, about what you just said right at the beginning about the FFP2 and 3 masks. Hideously expensive, says Annie.

She's just looked. Single use. Do we really need to use these? And Caro says, I've just heard your guests say which ones are the safe masks. The box of masks I've just bought doesn't give that.

It doesn't say that. The box says complies with BSEN and then a very long number and then type IIR or 11R. I am confused. Help, please. Well, obviously, you know, it's difficult to go into that in detail here. But if you go on the internet and look at FFP2, FFP3, N95, those are the sorts of masks, or do a Google search. And I agree, I totally agree, they are more expensive. But, you know, to be honest, although they say single use, for people like us, obviously, in medical settings, they're single use, but for people like me, who will wear them not all day, but, you know, on occasions, when we go into shots, I think that, you know, we can use them for a long time. I don't want to say exactly how long think that, you know, we can use them for a long time.

I don't want to say exactly how long, but, you know, people can form their own views on how long they're willing to work. I think it might be a whole separate sort of more or less on this or a different programme to go right into the detail. But I just wanted to give you that question that had come in. Professor Robert West, Professor Christina Pagel, thank you very much to both of you indeed. We're talking about science facts from fiction.

The poet Holly McNish has been on Twitter making a plea about the way the word vagina has been used on a Channel 4 programme you may be familiar with called Naked Attraction. In case you haven't seen the show, contestants have to choose between six naked people initially hidden in booths, but bodies

and faces are then gradually revealed from the feet up and they whittle them down one by one, eventually revealing the person they want to date. Maybe they're also going to be wearing masks now. But Holly is annoyed that in describing the various intimate body parts which are on display, women's genitalia are not being described accurately. Here's the presenter, Anna Richardson, with a recent contestant called Jay. Instantly, I'm drawn to yellow. Let's go and have a look. All right, what about the vagina?

It's very pretty. Word I would use is inviting. Inviting. OK, let's just linger on that for a moment. But Holly, good morning. What's the problem? So it's a very simple problem that we have on a lot of programmes, I guess. But on this one it stands

out because they're literally looking at a line of vulvas basically and they just keep calling it a vagina it's really simple there was the same problem in the sex education program on channel four and they corrected it in the next series so it's just it's me and i've had a lot of sort of mates call me about it and a lot of people online saying they're just standing, screaming at their TV. One woman said she can't watch it anymore because her husband's like, what, you're still screaming? Just, but there's so much that it's just,

you can't see the contestant's vagina. Like it's two different body parts. It's not difficult to change, but it's just, it's not the vagina. But people refer, i mean i'm just thinking actually back to the beginning of the week we were talking about this particular case um with regards to police officers who've been caught on cctv talking about um a woman who we had on the program yesterday um dr duff who dr duff talking about her being smelly and nick

is being smelly and we were talking about you know vaginas being referred to as smelly you could still talk about vaginas you're talking about the actual accuracy of what's being described oh yeah totally if they're looking if they're talking about a vagina i've used the word vagina it's just a different body part and on this program like it would be a very different program if they were actually looking right up the vagina which is the so when you say vagina what are you talking about and when you say vulva what are you talking about because people will also be listening thinking i know i should know but what are you talking about well me too so i only learned the difference in my 30s don't get me wrong this is not a shaming thing i just think the miseducation needs to like stop

now and chat we could do it on telly very easily so vagina hopefully I'll describe this correctly is the tube although my friend Maddy told me yesterday it's not always open as a tube it's from the opening to the cervix so it's internal basically and the vulva is the external genitalia which includes the labia clitoris which is important on a dating show I think and the urethra which is also important because it's you know where we we from so yeah basically vulva external vagina internal so yeah it's it's it's sort of funny when there's comments like oh this one has less hair this vagina has less hair this vagina is bejazzled which if it was it would include sort of putting jewels right in there.

Yeah. And I know it's a mistake that we make all the time. But I channel for just so many good programmes about sex education. And I think they could very easily just brief contestants before for those who don't know the correct word. And then just use the correct word when you're talking about the vulva. That's it. It's easy to change, I think. But a lot of people

because they don't know or they if they know they know others don't know don't use the word as as the shorthand so so you're kind of in this place where the the world is is divided into those who know and those who don't and those who do know are often just for shorthand having to use the word vagina. Oh, yeah, totally. No, I understand that. But it's not the same body part. So I think we're in this time at the moment where we are trying to change it. It has been shamed for years. Like there's a reason we don't say vulva. There's a reason you find it.

Tell us about that. Just because it's been censored for so long. Like the vulva includes the clitoris, which is obviously one of the most most censored body parts it's been taken out of anatomy books for hundreds of years it's not been on the curriculum until now so we are slowly changing things so we know the correct terms but it is you know it is important to to label our body parts correctly and it's really important I've had a lot of people writing in who work in nurseries, who deal with abuse cases, and they say things like, it's much harder to prosecute somebody if the person can't describe the body part that's being touched. So things like that just stick with me, I think.

I find it hard to say. I have a daughter and I found it really hard, and I genuinely, ridiculously practice with words like velvet and Volvo for a while because I was not used to saying it but it is a different body you've painted you've painted a couple of really strong mental images for us one is the the thought of women just standing in front of their televisions watching channel four screaming the word vulva over and over again and now you practicing with words that are similar to sounding to try and get there yeah because it is hard it's not a word that um well I was not taught it at school and

but but it is different and and I know it's not people keep sort of tweeting oh Anna Anna Richardson who's the presenter you need to change this but there's a whole team it's not it's not just on her she does a lot of shows about sex education, which are really good. And she has used the word on a couple of the programmes, but then sort of flicked back. And it would just be so easy to change. It's just, you know, they don't call the testicles the penis. They don't stand there looking at the penises calling them testicles.

No, they don't. They definitely don't do that. And you saying they flicked back. I mean, there's so many things I could say in response to that but i won't and there's a there's a quote here from channel four which says naked attraction uses a mix of familiar colloquial and anatomical terms when describing the human body expressions that many of the contributors use about their own bodies themselves the anatomical word vulva has been used often during the series alongside many other physiological descriptions of different body parts um yeah but it's it's still not quite where it needs to be according to you it's fine use it obviously the colloquial words it does use that it's really funny some of the

words they use but when you use the anatomical words you're not using it correctly so it is important if they've chosen you know all the other words fine it's fine but they they use the word vagina over and over again which is an anatomical word that's not a colloqu words fine it's fine but they they use the word vagina over and over again which is an anatomical word that's not a colloquial word it's anatomical and they constantly use it incorrectly so if they'll use the vagina then use vulva it's weird to flip back and it's really confusing because our education is rubbish and tv programs like this shouldn't get it wrong like you literally have a whole it's all about the body you know the whole program is centered around looking at a body and it's it's

it's odd that a team of um people would not just correct that and it's not vagina is not colloquialism it's an anatomical word so well i mean fair enough on the other points but that's not that's not really an anatomical word. You're not accepting it. Like many people when I read them, the official statements from whomever I get them from, it's completely fine to have the reaction to it and I wouldn't expect anything less. Do you think you're going to win the vulva war? I don't think it's a war.

I just think it's like... For some people it is. I have had, I can't tell you, if you get this stuff wrong, the messages are real. And, you know... Yeah, so I hate that side of it, the shaming. Oh, for goodness sake, just say it. It takes a lot.

And this is, you know, thousands of years of cultural and historical shaming. Like, it's a hard word to say. I hope with this programme we do, like, it really wouldn't be a big deal for them to make a joke about it. And it could be funny, you know,

a contestant coming on and saying, oh, I didn't realize that was what it was called and they've already done it channel four's already done it on sex education they've they've done it and it wasn't hard and they just corrected it and used the right words um so keep on with the colloquialisms like obviously we have lots of different language for different things and some of it's familiar some of it's sexy um you know i don't use the word vulva in the bedroom i was going to say just on the on the point of you know what to call women's genitalia i think that it's also you know even if you don't use vagina or vulva people have gone for other words especially with children and no but you know it's it's interesting how there just doesn't still we we don't seem to have arrived at a place

where a majority are happy. No, we haven't. But that's also to do with censorship and history. Like I think with children, especially, it is weird. As I said, I'm a mum, I've got a young daughter and I didn't use it at first, the word vulva. I don't even think I used the word vagina. Like I'm not, I wasn't comfortable with all these words. What are you going with? Like foof, flower? I can't even remember, to be honest. Or you just don't talk.

You just don't name it, which is really bad. But I've read so much about child protection, which is like if little girls all use different words for that body part, for the vulva and the vagina, it's just so hard in cases of abuse. And it does nothing but set kids up to sort of fail and teaching them the right words vulva is external vagina is internal it's really not difficult kids aren't aren't bothered once you do you realize that all that shame it's really it's

really yours and once you just say the correct word it's not it's not a big deal the word vulva is not gonna you know make children self-combust it's just the correct anatomical word like teaching them the word shoulder um shoulder vulva all the same we i've got to say holly i love this i love this message that's just coming from jenna it's lovely to talk to you jenna says breaking down female anatomy on women's has brought the sun out in manchester That is the power of the vulva. Holly, thank you so much. Lovely to talk to you. The poet, the spoken word artist, Holly McNish there making a plea to Channel 4 and I think a broader one as well. Another one here

from the fan way says, I cannot tell you how much I'm enjoying listening to this. I've had a good screech at the screen regularly on this very point. Somebody calls himself Paul the Naked Hiker, says, ah, the old vulva vagina problem on Woman's Hour. Do people still really not know the difference? And my two-year-old granddaughter uses the word with no problem, just as her four-year-old brother uses it as encouraged by their mother. Absolutely, this drives me mad when they mix it up. They say that a man's urethra is huge or whatever they do,

internal bits, external bits. Let's try and get this right, please. And another one, excellent information about women's internal and external sex organs. I am due to have a prolapse repaired and my friend had no idea what was involved or which body parts I was talking about. Please don't forget about the cervix. And so those messages continue.

Well, to go to something else completely, to take your minds elsewhere, picture the scene, an operatic heroine dying tragically on stage, meeting some terrible end. You do not have to be an opera fan to be able to imagine it. The arias they sing are often very beautiful, of course, but their fates and roles, predictable. This issue is something that the award-winning all-women string quartet Zayed have addressed in a new project. They've teamed up with a male countertenor to showcase the arias of tragic heroines by 17 different composers to play with the idea of a man singing such parts. Here they are performing an aria from Bizet's Carmen, Love is a Re rebellious bird. I'm joined from Austria where they're performing tonight with one of the quartet, the first violinist, Charlotte Maclay.

Good morning. Good morning. How did this project come about? Well, actually, when the project started back in 2020, it was Theophile Alexander Singer and us having a little coffee and he was telling us about how he got into opera when he was three years old. He got this vinyl at the time of Carmen and he just loved it. And this is actually

how he decided to be a singer he just didn't quite get why she had to die at the end but he was three years old you know um but then you know time passed and we're having this coffee and um and he was telling us that and we were like um yeah actually why is she dying? She's dying because a man is in love with her. Oh, that's not quite right, is it? Then we were like, she's dying because she's a free spirit and she wants to live her life the way she chooses. Well, that's also not very satisfying, is it? And so we started to look at more great areas from famous operas. And we noticed that wherever we looked, the heroine was dying in tragic ways.

We looked at more operas and we saw that whatever the context, she was suffering or killing herself or dying from love, stabbed, suffocated. Well, you know, you get the picture. Yes. And the shocking thing is that the more we looked into these super beautiful and famous areas, and I'm talking over four centuries because this is 17th century to 20th century with Piazzolla, the more we discovered that there seemed to be only one way of treating the heroine. Almost like if the beauty of the areas had to go hand in hand with watching a woman suffer in different ways it's a bit like corridor really but you know it's a great amount because opera is wonderful it's a great amount of beauty amazing staging

but what we realized is that all of this beauty was in a way hiding a message behind it's that all of these are written by men because at the time women didn't have a space for writing music for many reasons that we can get into later if you want. But basically we're looking at men writing fantasies of women suffering and dying as a way to enjoy an evening of high culture. Do you think you'll be able to change something with this? Yeah, I actually believe so because, you know,

we had the premiere of, because No Dame, No Dame is both a CD and a show, and we had the premiere of the show in France last week. And the reaction of the audience was amazing. We had a standing ovation and many people were very moved to the tears, you know. To see a man singing these sorts of roles? It's a whole thing, I guess. But what was really interesting is that for most people,

watching a man sing these areas was not a problem. Watching women being in charge of directing the music was not a problem. Watching women being in charge of directing the music was not a problem. And this means that things which have been a problem in the past don't seem to be anymore. So for me, this is extremely encouraging. And, you know, it's a humanist project. It's not because we're often asked, is this a feminist project? I think it's a humanist project. It's about all of us, men and women, you know, how we live together equally with no gender stereotypes or gender cliches.

Is opera moving slower, do you think, than other parts of life in terms of artistic representation and those differences that you describe? I think it is, but to be honest, I think a lot of places are moving slowly. I mean, thank God things are starting to change. But, you know, just to give you an example, because without even looking far at places where women's rights are really not respected, you know, we are aet of four women. We studied in France, in Austria, in England and in America.

For all of this time, we were starting with great masters of our art, which were mainly men in their 60s, because at the time, twin quartet was mostly men. It started to change later, but it's also, it's still very rare to see a whole female quartet. But the message we always received was, oh, it's a shame you're a great quartet, but you're going to have to make a choice. You're not going to be able to have a family and a career. And I'm talking about this 10 years ago, and still we have younger musicians calling us to ask for advice because it's still what they are being told. So I think there is space for changing in the musical world, definitely. Well, I think a lot of people would agree with you.

They still enjoy the music. They still enjoy, I suppose, the traditions of those particular performances. But also open, I suppose, to seeing things done anew. And maybe they've seen that more in theatre than they have in opera. We will see. Yes, absolutely. We will see.

Charlotte Maclay, thank you very much. No Dames is available digitally. That's the name of the project. And it's also on CD. And the Zaid Quartet have now started to tour and you can find out a bit more on their website about it. I'm just minded to go back to, we've covered a lot of ground today and so many messages, thank you for them coming in.

And right at the beginning of the programme, because it is National Holocaust Memorial Day, you are hearing from 91-year-old survivor Rachel Levy. She will be, her portrait and some of her story and herself will be on as part of this 60 minute BBC Two documentary this evening called Survivors, Portraits of the Holocaust with these new series of

paintings which are being displayed in the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace. And Joan wrote in while listening to Rachel talk as powerfully as she did and as honestly as she did, for which I'm extremely grateful, and says, thank you so much for allowing this wonderful survivor to tell her story. I'm extremely grateful, and says, thank you so much for allowing this wonderful survivor to tell her story.

I'm crying as I write this. When she was taken to Belsen, one of those British soldiers was my father-in-law. He never, ever recovered from what he saw at Belsen, and I will be lighting a candle and placing it in my window at 8 o'clock this evening. Joan, thank you very much for that message, and what a memory to be able

to share and to speak about what your father-in-law was able to do and perhaps not able to speak easily about and to which so many are grateful. I too will be lighting a candle this evening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the next one. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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