Walter Bingham talks about his remarkable life, including witnessing the burning of books by Nazi Germany, and his career in journalism and as a radio talk show host.

Walter Bingham

Paul: You witnessed the burning of books by Nazi Germany!

Walter: That was in 1933 where there was an instruction to all libraries to deliver up big prescribed list of books all about Jews, written by Jews and achievements of Jews and so on, maybe also a few communists, they had to bring them in my town to the Castle Park. They set up a big bonfire and all civilians were told that they must look at this list and any books they have at home like that they have to bring them to this event when they were going to be burned. If they don't then they would be for the high jump, and so I went there. We were with a young boy and I went and I looked at it. I saw it and the German people happily threw the German culture onto the bonfire and something very interesting, the Time Magazine at the turn of the century in America asked its listeners to tell them who they think was the person who contributed most to the 20th Century. Well, obviously people said Martin Luther King, others said Nelson Mandela, somebody said Elvis Presley. Who do you think was chosen? Einstein! Whose books were burned in 1933? So it was realised later that Einstein contributed so much to our sciences, the bases of sciences.

Paul: You came to the UK in 1939, which must mean you were actually at Kristallnacht when that happened in Germany. What happened there?

Walter: That happened in 1938. Well what happened first of all is of course on the night from the 9th to the 10th of November 1938. A thousand or more synagogues were burned in Germany, Austria and the by then occupied Sudetenland, part of western of Czechoslovakia which the Germans had already got.

30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps and a lot of German property was destroyed. You may ask, why was it just at that particular night? Well the story goes, you need to watch the time line, the story goes back to 1938, the so called 'Anschluss', the takeover of Austria by the Nazis in '38. There were many Polish Jews there and the Polish Government was now concerned that all those Polish Jews will want to come home, run away from the Germans and come home to Poland. Of course it was still peace time and they didn't want the Jews so they issued a denationalisation law which said that any Pole living outside of Poland for more than five years needs to have a stamp in their passport. When the Jews went to the consulate they were refused a stamp. No Jews got a stamp which meant that overnight all these so called Polish Jews became stateless, no passport, no country, no protection, nothing. Now what can you do with a stateless mass of people?

Because the policy of the Nazis at the time was not yet extermination, the actual extermination of the Jews came later after the Wannsee conference, it was get rid of them, get them out of the country. Of course nobody wanted to take us in, that's another story. So now what are they going to do with this mass of stateless Jews that they had on their plate? Later on in the year, Himmler, the Gestapo police chief, decided to forcefully deport all those Polish Jews to Poland. That was much later in the year, but it started in March of that year.

On the 28th of October 1938 they rounded up all the Polish Jews, put them into sealed trains and sent them to the Polish border. The Poles wouldn't let them in, they didn't want any Jews. The Germans wanted to push them across the border and so they were there for about three nights in no man's land. You can imagine the situation and the conditions.

There was a family from Hanover in Germany called Grynszpan. This family contacted their son called Herschel, he was 17 years old and he lived illegally in Paris. He got so livid, so upset that his parents had to go through that ordeal that he got himself a gun and went to the German Embassy and asked for the ambassador. Well you can't so easily see an ambassador so he was taken to the third secretary Ernst Von Rath, and when this young boy Herschel Grynszpan, 17 years old boy, faced this German diplomat he drew the pistol and shot him. Von Rath died two days later of his wounds. That was the 28th of October when his parents were sent off, 9th of November was the Kristallnacht. In the meantime the guy died and that was the trigger to set in motion the biggest pogrom against Jews before the actual Holocaust itself, and it was absolutely prepared because all the Nazi organisations in every town had letters of instruction that when the day comes, when they give the ok, they set it in motion because you couldn't otherwise do what they've done. So it was publicised as a spontaneous uprising of the German people, because of the killing of a German diplomat by a Jew, but in fact it was all prepared and was just waiting for an occasion to set in motion, and that occasion was of course after the man was shot. A couple of days later was the 9th of November, that was Kristallnacht.

Paul: Later you had a career in journalism in Britain and also have been an actor as well!

Walter: Yes I thought that would be a good idea to get into journalism. There was a radio station advertising for somebody to man their telephones in the studio where people called in. I applied and got the job. The job was to ask the caller "what do you want to talk about?" You know the story when you listen to talk, maybe like LBC in London and other talk shows. I did that and occasionally the host would ask me to comment also and that's how it started. Later on they decided to give me my own show, and I had also written for the papers and that's how it developed. I liked it, I was obviously good at it, broadcasting in England here and there and the rest is history really.

Paul: Did you get to interview some interesting people?

Walter: It was mostly call in shows, talk shows at that time. Here in Israel I had some very interesting people on my shows, some were just benign interviews with interesting authors reviewing their books, and then there are confrontational interviews which are fun. But you have to know how to handle them and I had one or two of those. Meeting so many and certainly in Israel now in my later life, because you know when you are old like I am you can get away with a lot of things that you can't when you are younger, and I am using that, so I have some advantages. There are disadvantages to be old of course, you know in Jerusalem all roads only go up hill because it's a very hilly town. All roads only go up and every week they get steeper. But on a good day I feel like 40 and on a bad day like 50, so that's not bad is it.

Paul: You have also got involved in acting as well, what sort of things have you acted in?

Walter: The acting was in England. I had to make a living and journalism and radio didn't pay that well, so I grew a very large beard, I had an enormous beard and someone suggested that beard could earn me money. So I went to a few theatrical agents, presented myself and you know I am a bit of an extrovert and I can talk, so they liked me, and I was on the books of six agents. I got a lot of advertising work, documentaries and a few films, including Harry Potter where I was a wizard. Nothing special, I was in the first one and in the second one I had a somewhat better part, nothing much really, you know if you blinked you would miss me. I was actually in Los Angeles and flew back on a Friday for the shoot on Sunday and said "I'll be back on Sunday" straight from the airport, and they said "sorry Walter we've changed the schedule we are filming today." So I missed that number although I was measured up for clothes and so on. I missed number two and then I did again number three. Then I came to Israel. If I hadn't gone I suppose I would have been in every film, maybe I would have got nicer parts where you wouldn't have to blink. Then I played in documentaries, which I played Darwin, I did all kinds, adverts and things for the newspapers.

Paul: What is the key to long life?

Walter: Well here in the Middle East they eat a lot of garlic and so I tell people "sit down, hold on to your chair" and then I say "no garlic" and then they fall off the chair. I hate the stuff, I run a mile from it, and everything has got garlic. But really and truly I am blessed by God I have good genes, I don't know why, it's all genes because I still eat what I want. I put on a little bit of weight, I used to be very slim, but now I have middle aged spread of course. But I more or less eat and if I see cholesterol I go for it, sugar I go for it, salt I love it, I'm just blessed to be very healthy. People ask me what about your parents? What about the lifespan of your parents? Well unfortunately my father as I told you died as a young man in the Warsaw Ghetto. My mother came through the camps and developed a brain tumour, which is not surprising, so she didn't live to anything like it, and I had an aunt who lived in Israel and she died just before she was 101. But you know 101, when you are nearly 94, is too fast isn't it, it's too quick. People in Israel, there is a habit in Israel to wish you up to 120, which is the life of Moses, and when they say that I stop them. You know I am thinking back to the twin towers in New York, that was 16 years ago and I think "16 years is like yesterday for me" so another 25 years to 120 that's far too quick. I don't want that, so far I am feeling fine. My daughters say "you know you are arrogant" because I keep saying "I can't imagine a world without me." I'm enjoying life, although I am working strenuously to make the deadlines, but when you get older you still find time to do all the things you always wanted to do and never had time for, because I am not under such pressure. If I don't want to do a show one week I send them an old one that nobodies heard yet, something from England and so I take the week off.

Paul: Finally, you actually have a flying license as well don't you?

Walter: Yeah I got my pilots license in 1968. It's like building blocks, first you can just fly alone, and then take passengers, and then you can fly by night. You have to build it up, you get different tests and in the end I had the highest license that one could have flying blind in cloud, as high as my airplane would take me, and I went all over Europe.

Once I flew to Israel. A pilot's license isn't worth anything unless you have a medical and a medical is not just from any doctor it's from the civil aviation authority medical branch. I get mine in Gatwick and my last medical was issued in February this year, which means I'm licensed because it's valid for a year, so I am their oldest pilot. They say they haven't got anybody older than me, getting on for 94 unbelievably. I can't believe it myself because as I told you, I personally feel much younger anyway, so I have a problem with the flying here, Israelis are a bit funny but in England I have no problem.