Memories of the Holocaust

We were hugely privileged to welcome Harry Bibring to Pipers Corner today. Harry came to share his experience of being a Jew in Austria in the 1930s.

Born in December 1925 in Vienna, Harry enjoyed a happy childhood – he particularly liked ice skating, learning about mechanics, and spending time with his sister, Gerta. However, it was not to last - after the Anschluss in 1938, Harry’s life changed dramatically. He was forced to leave his school and anti-Jewish legislation had a huge impact on his childhood, and indeed, his later life.

In his talk to the girls (from Year 9-Upper Sixth) Harry described how his Father’s menswear business was looted and destroyed during Kristallnacht and how, following his Father’s arrest, Harry’s family were forced to leave their flat and live in a house together with 50 other Jewish women and children. Following his father’s release, Harry’s family made an attempt to flee to Shanghai but were unable to procure the visas and passage tickets. Fearing for their children’s safety, Harry’s parents decided that he and his sister should leave for Britain on the Kindertransport.

The Kindertransport was a unique humanitarian programme which ran between November 1938 and September 1939. Approximately 10,000 children, the majority of whom were Jewish, were sent from their homes and families in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain. The plan was for Harry and Gerta to be sponsored by a family friend and for their parents to join them as soon as they could. Unfortunately that never happened. In November 1940, Harry’s father died of a heart attack. Harry’s mother was deported by the Nazis to the death camp at Sobibór in German-occupied Poland in 1942.

Separated from his sister, Harry spent the early years of the war living in a village near Peterborough, before moving to London. He eventually procured an engineering apprenticeship and moved in with his sister, Gerta, who had also returned to London, working in a war factory and living in a boarding house.

In May 1945 Harry met his wife-to-be, Muriel and they married two years later. Harry enrolled to study in evening classes at various colleges, while continuing to earn a living. After qualifying as a chartered engineer he went on to work for 20 years as a manufacturing engineer and later became a lecturer. Harry continues to live in England, has one son, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Following Harry’s hugely moving testimony an educator from the Holocaust Educational Trust ran workshops with girls in Year 9. The Workshop picked up on some of the themes from Harry’s talk – considering the ways in which Jewish people were persecuted and also how different groups of people responded to the Holocaust. There was a discussion about how we now all have the option to do something in life when things are not right - people can protest, march and ultimately vote, whereas the Jewish community in the 1930s and 40s had no such choice. At the conclusion of the session everyone agreed that it is better to try and do something about a situation that is wrong, than to stand back and do nothing at all.

Head of History, Mrs Tinnelly, said, “Listening to Harry’s testimony was a hugely powerful experience for the girls. To hear a first-hand account of the terrible events of the Holocaust really brought home the awful reality of the situation that so many experienced. Harry’s testimony very much reinforced the belief that these events should never be allowed to be repeated.”