75 years after Kristallnacht, eyewitness Harry Bibring takes part in live twitter Q&A
On Sunday 10th November, to mark the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, we held a live twitter Q&A with eyewitness and Holocaust survivor Harry Bibring. Harry spent over an hour answering questions from the public about the waves of violent anti-Jewish attacks took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. You can read the transcript below and Harry's biography here.
@87andyheron87
What were your thoughts and emotions during Kristallnacht? Were u scared? #AskBibring
@HolocaustUK
1/3 I was frightened;I didn’t know where my dad was.During 9th&10th dad was still with us but he disappeared.We didn’t know where he had gone.
2/3 We were all scared. I remember our synagogue being burned. I remember seeing the anti-semitic posters that had been put up on the night of 9th November.
3/3 On the 10th November I saw orthodox Jews scrubbing the streets. I couldn’t understand how people would do this to holy people.
@baeing
What was the international reaction to “Kristallnacht” at the time?
1/3:The radio was talking to the world at large saying Jews have brought this on themselves, that they had to be treated like this.
2/3: I didn’t know what the world thought as our radio didn’t tune into international stations.
3/3: Nothing was reported in the press about what other countries were thinking or saying.
@Vimla16
Have you ever been back to Vienna and visited the site of your father’s shop?
1/5:I have been back many times – the first time in 1951, by which time it had been rebuild as a flower shop.
2/5:I left in 1939&it was as had been when destroyed on 10th morning,my father’s one remaining employee called&said my father hadn’t arrived.
3/5:My mum phoned around friends.No-one knew anything until we were taken later that morning to another flat&put under house arrest. Our flat was out of bounds to us.
4/5:When I first returned,the flower shop was well-established.I went back&went to the rooms where we had lived–I knew my dad had been killed.
5/5:I had never known what had happened to my mum but the concierge of the building remembered and was able to tell me the day she and her sister had been deported.
@dap005
What is your happiest childhood memory?
1/3:There are so many to choose from!Probably the best was when I proved everyone wrong by getting in to grammar school–no one thought I would do it!
2/3:I had a happy life&wanted for nothing.I had parents who gave me everything I wanted–which was maybe bad for me,I was a bit of a spoilt brat!
3/3:My dad was always very soft on me, my mum was a disciplinarian so I always hid behind my dad. I had a very happy childhood.
@brianm
What do you think Kristallnacht specifically can teach us so that such persecution can never happen again?
1/2:It teaches us that discriminating against others just because they are different,not for what they have done,but because of their religion,…
2/2:…skin colour,political views etc., can lead to genocides as we have seen since the Holocaust in places like Rwanda,Cambodia,Bosnia&many others.
@dap005
Do you think it is better to forget or to remember, even if the memories are painful, and why?
1/3:It is impossible to forget&I don’t think you should.It gets more painful as time goes on but I think I need to remember.
2/3:We need to tell people so we don’t make the same mistakes in future
3/3:That is why I spend so much of my time speaking to students up and down the country about my own experience before, during and after WWII.
@WillAPinder
Looking back now, do you still have any unanswered questions about what happened and why it happened?
1/6:When my parents decided we were to emigrate our destination was to be Shanghai.
2/6:My father had to sell everything of value to get visas and tickets.
3/6:On the day he went to buy them he came home distraught.He would only tell us that on arrival at the Consul all the money in his pocket had gone.
4/6:He refused to elaborate and I really want to know why we didn’t go to Shanghai.
5/6:My parents planned to follow my sister&I to England,&expected to obtain a visa on the grounds that they had children there being looked after by strangers.
6/6:However,from the correspondence we received they found closed doors wherever they went and the outbreak of WWII made it even more difficult.
@eve_williams
After the persecution of Jews, such as on Kristallnacht, are you still religious?
1/7:Yes I am,I believe in God and follow the Jewish religion in an orthodox manner.This was not always so.
2/7:My home growing up was orthodox,as were the first places is lived in England,but in my early teens I had to earn enough to pay for lodgings,so I worked on the Sabbath,…
3/7:…I did not stick to the Jewish dietary laws as Kosher food was more expensive and I more or less left religion behind.
4/7:Later,I met a girl who would eventually become my wife.She was religious.
5/7:I knew if our relationship was to go anywhere I would have to behave the way I was raised.
6/7:In retrospect it was the best decision I made in my life.
7/7: I look back to my teens&it was for practical reasons,my environment& loss of interest.I didn’t lose my faith because of what happened–the two were not related.
@dulciewilkinson
How do you feel towards those responsible for what happened?
1/3:I feel that everybody who played any part in the Holocaust should be punished.
2/3:However,now those people are old&there are few of them still alive.I don’t think their age should have bearing on whether they face punishment.
3/3:However,I feel no animosity towards this generation of Germans,and believe we should all work together to allow peaceful coexistence.
@jackdouglass
Was there a sense of foreboding in terms of what was to come?
1/1 My parents thought so.Up until then,they believed they could ride it out. After Kristallnacht I think they realised it could only get worse.
@ruthie
What are your memories of your first few days in England? Did you find it easy to settle in?
1/5:When I arrived I could not speak any English–as I was being moved between foster homes and only staying in each for a week at a time…
2/5:…It was urgent for me to learn quickly and I tried very hard. Initially, I was very unimpressed with English food…
3/5:…I found white bread inedible & it wasn’t much better when it was burned in a machine and called toast!
4/5:There were foods that tasted OK but because I’d never seen them I treated with suspicion. The foods from home that I loved no one had heard of!
5/5:The learning curve was steep – but worth climbing.
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