Students in Year 9 had the privilege of listening to second generation Holocaust speaker, Michael Bibring, outline his father’s story of surviving the Holocaust. His father Harry was born on 26th December 1925 in Vienna, Austria. On 10th November 1938, Harry’s father’s menswear business was looted and destroyed during Kristallnacht. His father was then arrested and Harry’s family were forced to leave their flat and live in a house together with 50 other Jewish women and children. Fearing for the safety of their children, Harry’s parents decided that 13 year old Harry and his sister should leave for Britain on the Kindertransport.

The plan was for them to be sponsored by a family friend and for their parents to join them as soon as they could. That never happened.

In November 1940, Harry’s father died of a heart attack. His mother was deported to the death camp at Sobibór in Poland in 1942. When Harry and his sister arrived in England they were greeted by Mr Landsman, who Harry’s father had arranged to act as their sponsor but it turned out there was no room for Harry and the two were separated. When war broke out on 3rd September 1939, Harry was evacuated to Fletton, near Peterborough in England. Harry stayed with the headmaster of the local grammar school who offered him tremendous support. Harry went on to become an engineer.

Watching Michael talk about his father’s struggle from his perspective was particularly poignant and the history was made even more concrete by Michael’s use of original documents and artefacts from his father’s life.