To win both BAFTA & Emmy shows the emotional power of the documentary: Jyoti Mehta

Simon Schama : The Road to Auschwitz – titled Simon Schama: The Holocaust, 80 Years On for its PBS broadcast and streaming release in the US – won Outstanding Historical Documentary at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards 2026 on Thursday. Accepting the award, historian and writer of the documentary Schama said, “Sometimes you wish you didn’t have to make a film about the worst that human beings can do to other human beings, but that’s going on a lot right now. The Holocaust needs to be remembered as if we were ourselves trapped by it. And we tried in this film to bring people into the centre of this abysmal dismay and cruelty.”


Earlier this month, the documentary also won the BAFTA for Best Specialist Factual, marking the first BAFTA win of Schama’s long career – and for what film critics consider his most personal and unflinching film yet. Directed by Hugo Macgregor and produced by Jyoti Mehta, the film traces Schama’s deeply personal engagement with Holocaust history. Producer Jyoti Mehta shared, “Winning just one of these awards (BAFTA and Emmy) is a special honour, but for the project to have won both shows the sheer emotional power of this film. That comes from our team’s guiding mission – to not shy away from the horror and to see it from the perspective of the victims, many of whom used their agency to document what was happening. At a time of rising Holocaust denial, it is important to remind the world of their words.”





In an interaction with us, she discussed the making of the project.

SIMON TRAVELLED ACROSS EUROPE TO EXPLORE HOW THE HOLOCAUST WAS A EUROPEAN-WIDE CRIME OF COMPLICITY

Produced by Oxford Films for BBC, the documentary aired in 2025, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The BAFTA nominees included line producer Venita Singh-Warner, a British-Indian who managed the production.
Schama had consciously never visited Auschwitz-Birkenau despite a long career documenting Jewish history, but eventually felt compelled to confront the enormity of the Holocaust and the catastrophe experienced by its victims. Mehta worked closely with the director to select the sites Schama would visit on his road to Auschwitz. The producer further shared that Schama travelled across Europe to explore how the Holocaust was far more than a Nazi obsession that played out in gas chambers, but a Europeanwide crime of complicity. His journey took him to Lithuania, Poland and the Netherlands, before finally confronting Auschwitz.

‘SIMON SHAMA LEANED INTO AN ARRAY OF DIARIES AND ARCHIVES’

Talking about the process of making the documentary, Mehta said, “Schama leaned into an array of remarkable diaries and archives that document resistance and a commitment to documenting history as it was unravelling. In doing so, the audience gets to know some of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.”

Discussing one of the most emotional moments during filming, she added, “Simon met Marian Turski (97), a Holocaust survivor who dedicated his life to ensuring the world understood what happened – and how evil comes ‘step by step’. He provided the film with one of his last interviews, and passed away during the editing of the film – a poignant reminder of how fast first-hand testimony of this history is fading away. Sitting in that interview room was one of the most chilling yet moving moments of my entire career.”