Sister's life saved Jürgen Vogel on cancer: "Family hit pretty hard"

In the "NDR Talk Show", actor Jürgen Vogel talks about his experiences with death. Several close relatives have been diagnosed with cancer, his father died of it.

Actor Jürgen Vogel has given an insight into the difficult strokes of fate within his family. Several of his close relatives have been diagnosed with cancer. "Somehow it hit our family pretty hard," said the 56-year-old on the "NDR Talk Show".

"I donated bone marrow to my sister back then. She had leukemia, or blood cancer, one of the most aggressive forms of it. I was 21 or so at the time. It was a matter of life and death for her. Luckily she made it, thanks to my bone marrow," said the Hamburg native.

He continued in the show: "But my father died very young. He died at 58. I was in my early or mid-20s at the time, so I didn't have such a good relationship. It still affected me, of course. No matter what the relationship is like, other questions then arise, where you say: "I can no longer clarify things, I can no longer ask things." So death was with me."

All three sisters had cancer

The topic has been on his mind for a long time, he continued. "I have three sisters who all had and have cancer. (...) They're all still alive, but one of them had breast cancer, but it's now gone because they caught it early enough. The other one still has cancer. That's also my eldest sister. She's doing quite well. But of course it's in her and at some point what happens to all of us will happen. We're all going to die at some point."

The actor came to the talk show with his great-cousin Benjamin Vogel. The 41-year-old is a trained carer and runs a care home. In the format, he talked about his experiences and the work for his association (Palliativberatung basis e.V.).

dpa