Who Do You Think You Are?

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Stephen Fry

A quintessential Englishman?

In BBC Two's Who Do You Think You Are? Stephen Fry discovered more about his family's connection with Bury St Edmunds.

Fry remembers his childhood amidst a noisy, bustling, European Jewish family, with lots of different accents flying around.

Fry's grandfather, Martin Neumann, came to Britain from Slovakia. He spent his life working in the sugar industry and was responsible for setting up the sugar beet factory in Bury St Edmunds.

Stephen Fry visits Bury St Edmunds and meets local farmer, Robert Long. He has been growing sugar beet for over 60 years and knew Fry's grandfather.

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Martin Neumann lived in a comfortable middle-class home in Beech Rise off Southgate Street. Stephen's mother Marianne has photographs of herself as a young child in the back garden with her two elder sisters.

Stephen traces his mother's family back to Slovakia and discovers what the family had always presumed was true - those who stayed behind had been murdered in the Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz.

Frank Bright's Story

Frank Bright main index >

You can also read the story of Suffolk's only Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. Frank Bright was born in 1928 and his family fled from Berlin to Czechoslovakia before ended up in Auschwitz. Frank eventually made it to Martlesham Heath near Ipswich ...

last updated: 23/06/2008 at 15:33
created: 25/01/2006

Have Your Say

june barathy
Hi Mr Fry,I watched in awe 'who do youthink you are. on SBS australia here on Sundaynight, it was like a re-runof ou search for details of my husbands father, oneGerald cecil de Barathy,we dropped the de, but the folk is the USA have held on to it. He'd changed his name to bradley, got in with the wrong crowd and in 1933 poured paint over Hitlers hear in the rooms of Madame Tussaus, he and his mates spent a week in goal, he went on to 'remarry 'twice and now we are one big happy family with my husband having acquired at least 2 step sisters and one step brother, one lives on the orkney island and the brother is a doctor in bristol. all ended well

John Witt
What was the archive he used to look up where his Jewish relatives died in the holocaust? Thanks

Mark
How is this bloke the quintessential Englishman?

JD
i love Stephen Fry and think he is great, i like the fact that he does not care about what anyone things, and has a clear mind to write his books and has such a clear memory about what happened in hsi childhood, really would like to met him and tell how much he has changed my life!!!

Alan Gooding
I have roots in Suffolk and a Gooding was once the Lord of the Manor of Kesgrave!

Paul
It is interesting that Stephen Fry uses a lot of autobiographical material in all of his books. His novel The Hippopotamus includes the story of a Jewish refugee fleeing to Suffolk to set up in Sugar Beet farming - i presume this is the story of his own grandfather.

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Who Do You Think You Are?

A quintessential Englishman?

Frank Bright's Story

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