Vera Coppard talking to sixth form students at Bromley High School (From News Shopper)

Vera Coppard talking to sixth form students at Bromley High School

6:42pm Wednesday 3rd February 2010 in

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‘Vera Coppard escaped Germany when the Jews were being prosecuted thanks to the British trains that went during the war to bring children over to our country. She visited Bromley High School and told her story to Sixth Form Students which offered them a unique chance to get a human angle on the horrible Nazi facts and figures given in the classroom scene.‘

In the early days, after Hitler came to power in 1933, her family remained in Berlin. At the age of nine, in 1935, youths pretending to be part of the SA (secret police) in the ‘brown shirt’ uniform which has made them famous in History lessons. They stormed into her home and held her mother at gun point. Using missing papers as an excuse, the men stayed through the night drinking and playing Nazi songs.

Bromley High Students felt the fear and emotion through Vera’s voice and it became very moving how people would pretend to be the SA in order to subject the Jews to more pain.

In 1937 Nazi Germany had practise air raids everyday and this was where we found out that everyone had to run into the street and salute, proclaiming ‘heil’ Hitler. Students had never learnt this in their lessons and it showed how Nazi Germany controlled everyone and they feared prosecution from the Police/ Secret Police more than death by bombs. If she had not done this, she told the students, she would not be here today.

Mrs Coppard was there to experience the Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) of 1938 where Germans would go around and destroy Jewish homes and businesses. She was also there at the burning of Synagogues which sounded horrifying. She moved to a Jewish school after being pushed downstairs, thrown onto the street and then cycled over in the road in the state sector. However, she did not remain in Germany long after this. After queuing for three days Mrs Coppard made it as one of the children on the Kindertransport (a British train service that saves hundreds of Jewish children from Germany) which transferred her to England to stay with foster parents. 80% of the Kindertransport children never saw their parents again.

Ms Coppard’s presentation was truly inspirational. Her humility and lack of resentment were poignant, stating that ‘we cannot blame a people forever; we do not know how we would react when it would endanger the lives of all our family’. Reminding us that we are the future, we have to be aware of mans’ inhumanity to man: eleven million people were killed by Hitler, a further fifty million in the war, there is still injustice today and it’s time to do something about it.

Jointly Written by Imogen Smith and Katrina Longhurst (BHS Student)