Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Holocaust survivor, 90, gives inspiring talk to pupils about
Harrowing WWII experiences
Senior pupils at St Andrew’s High have received an inspirational talk from a Holocaust survivor.
More than 200students crammed into the Coatbridge school’s assembly hall to listen as 90-yearold Harry Bibring informed and educated pupils of his ordeal as a young boy in the 1930s.
Harry recounted his harrowing experiences in Austria at the start of World War II, as well as talking about his earlier life before Nazi domination.
But his main message was to enlighten pupils on the dangers of prejudice, culminating in Harry asking them to raise their hands and promise they will never discriminate against someone because they are different.
He told the Advertiser: “I don’t even use the word racism, it doesn’t have a place in my vocabulary. There is only one race, the human race.
“It’s still going on today and we’ve got to learn that we can’t go on forever discriminating against people just because they are different to ourselves.
“When I get these promises, that’s what it’s about. That’s what I need to hear from our younger generation; that we will stop discriminating against people just because they are different.”
Harry, who was born in Vienna in 1925, was abandoned by many of his friends shortly after the introduction of Nazi propaganda, and was forced to quit his childhood hobby of ice-skating after the local rink closed its doors to Jews.
Aged 12, heexperienced the infamous Kristallnacht attack in Vienna in 1938, during which Nazis set synagogues alight, vandalised homes and schools and killed almost 100 Jews.
But Harry and his sister managed to escape the city via Kindertransport rescue operation, which brought thousands of Jewish refugee children to Britain, after his father’s clothing business was destroyed during the attack.
They sought refuge in London despite not knowing a word of English, but his parents weren’t so fortunate, his father died of a heart attack, before his mother was taken to Sobibor concentration camp.
He recounted his childhood with remarkable enthusiasm when perhaps it would reduce others to breaking point, describing moments he saw Jews forced to scrub pavements as well as seeing his own synagogue being set on fire.
But whilst Harry feels it is important to give pupils a history lesson and educate them on the past, it is even more vital to cultivate their knowledge on discrimination going forward.
He added: “I hope they can go away and say ‘ there must be something in what Harry said about prejudice against other people – and I won’t do that.’ I think I got everyone’s hands up today but if I get twenty when I ask then that suits me very nicely.
“The whole purpose of the Holocaust Educational Trust (HEC) is to educate, in particular, the youth of today, but also the world at large that we must not discriminate against other people.”
St Andrew’s High depute head David Cluckie said: “It’s an important part of the curriculum and it was great to have Harry in to visit us.”