Stephen Fry’s Sugar Beet Lifeline | Who Do You Think You Are? UK | Season 2 Episode 1
Who Do You Think You Are?
2,306 views
Stephen Fry traces his roots from Bury St Edmunds to Vienna and Shuraini. A 1926 sugar beet job changed the fate of his family.
In this Who Do You Think You Are? UK journey, Stephen begins with the exuberant memory of his Hungarian Jewish grandfather, Martin Neumann, and a single photo of relatives left behind. In Bury St Edmunds he learns how a new sugar beet factory brought Martin to England in 1926 alongside Dr Robert Jorish. Farmer Robert Long even remembers Martin and Stephen’s aunts, Gertrude and Margaret, tying the family story to the town the factory still dominates.
On his father’s side, Stephen investigates Ella Constance Dunthorne Pring. Records reveal Ella’s father, Albert James Pring, as a master hairdresser, while Albert’s father, Henry, appears in the Lewisham Union Workhouse as a pauper inmate. The Pring children were sent to Margate to convalesce, and Albert later died of tuberculosis in 1923, explaining Ella’s silence and class tensions around her marriage.
In Vienna, the War Archives show Martin’s rise from private to officer, including a September 1916 recommendation for bravery under heavy artillery fire. Stephen follows his grandmother Rosa’s family, the Browns, to 33 Rembrandtsgasse, where a plaque lists Berta and Samuel Brown among those deported in 1942 to the Riga ghetto.
Stephen then travels to Shuraini in Slovakia, where Martin once managed the local sugar works. He stands in the derelict plant seen in a 1926 photo, finds his great-grandfather Leopold Neumann’s grave in the Jewish cemetery, and meets survivor Jan Stark as the town restores its synagogue.
A family photo unlocks the fate of Martin’s sister, known as Reshka or Regina. Her marriage record names her husband, Tobias Lamb, and registry books list their children Pavel and Lydia. On Yad Vashem, Stephen confirms Regina and Tobias were murdered at Auschwitz in 1944, Lydia at Stutthof, while Pavel’s fate remains unclear.
A single job offer set a different course for Martin and Rosa in England, shaping Stephen Fry’s very existence.
#StephenFry #WhoDoYouThinkYouAre #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #HolocaustRemembrance #Vienna #BuryStEdmunds
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Stephen Fry’s Sugar Beet Lifeline | Who Do You Think You Are? UK | Season 2 Episode 1
Who Do You Think You Are?
2,306 views
Stephen Fry traces his roots from Bury St Edmunds to Vienna and Shuraini. A 1926 sugar beet job changed the fate of his family.
In this Who Do You Think You Are? UK journey, Stephen begins with the exuberant memory of his Hungarian Jewish grandfather, Martin Neumann, and a single photo of relatives left behind. In Bury St Edmunds he learns how a new sugar beet factory brought Martin to England in 1926 alongside Dr Robert Jorish. Farmer Robert Long even remembers Martin and Stephen’s aunts, Gertrude and Margaret, tying the family story to the town the factory still dominates.
On his father’s side, Stephen investigates Ella Constance Dunthorne Pring. Records reveal Ella’s father, Albert James Pring, as a master hairdresser, while Albert’s father, Henry, appears in the Lewisham Union Workhouse as a pauper inmate. The Pring children were sent to Margate to convalesce, and Albert later died of tuberculosis in 1923, explaining Ella’s silence and class tensions around her marriage.
In Vienna, the War Archives show Martin’s rise from private to officer, including a September 1916 recommendation for bravery under heavy artillery fire. Stephen follows his grandmother Rosa’s family, the Browns, to 33 Rembrandtsgasse, where a plaque lists Berta and Samuel Brown among those deported in 1942 to the Riga ghetto.
Stephen then travels to Shuraini in Slovakia, where Martin once managed the local sugar works. He stands in the derelict plant seen in a 1926 photo, finds his great-grandfather Leopold Neumann’s grave in the Jewish cemetery, and meets survivor Jan Stark as the town restores its synagogue.
A family photo unlocks the fate of Martin’s sister, known as Reshka or Regina. Her marriage record names her husband, Tobias Lamb, and registry books list their children Pavel and Lydia. On Yad Vashem, Stephen confirms Regina and Tobias were murdered at Auschwitz in 1944, Lydia at Stutthof, while Pavel’s fate remains unclear.
A single job offer set a different course for Martin and Rosa in England, shaping Stephen Fry’s very existence.
#StephenFry #WhoDoYouThinkYouAre #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #HolocaustRemembrance #Vienna #BuryStEdmunds