Walter Bingham

The train pulled into the station at Karlsruhe on July 26, 1939. A mother stood on the platform with her 15-year-old son. She knew what he didn’t yet understand: this goodbye was forever.

Wolfgang Billig—the boy who would become Walter Bingham—climbed aboard the Kindertransport. One small suitcase. No parents. No promises of return. Just the desperate hope that Britain might offer what Germany no longer could: a future.

He was one of nearly 10,000 Jewish children who escaped Nazi Germany this way. Most never saw their parents again.

When Darkness Arrived

Born in 1924 in Karlsruhe, Germany, Walter witnessed history’s darkest chapter unfold in real time. He was nine years old in 1933 when he saw the Nazis burn books in public squares. He was 14 when Kristallnacht shattered any illusion of safety.

That November night in 1938, he watched a synagogue burn. The fire service stood by—not to extinguish the flames, but to protect neighboring German property. The message was clear: Jewish lives, Jewish spaces, Jewish existence—expendable.

His school expelled him for being Jewish. His father was arrested and would later die in the Warsaw ghetto. When the Gestapo came looking for Walter, his mother lied to save him.

They asked her, “You have a son, where is he?” She said, “Oh, he’s gone out somewhere. I don’t know where he’s gone.” Otherwise, I’d have been with my father and not here today.

Weeks later, she put him on that train.

The Boy Who Became a Soldier

Walter arrived in England as war clouds gathered across Europe. He spent several years on a religious kibbutz training camp in Wales, preparing for a life in what was then called Palestine. But when he turned 18, he made a different choice.

He joined the British Army.

The boy who had fled the Nazis was going back to fight them. As an ambulance driver, he would return to Europe under very different circumstances—as part of the largest invasion force in history.

But Walter’s war wasn’t over. Because he spoke German, he was transferred to British counterintelligence. His new assignment: interrogating captured Nazi officials.

Imagine that moment. The Jewish boy they tried to murder now sitting across from his would-be executioners. Among those he interrogated was Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s foreign minister, who would later hang at Nuremberg.

Walter had survived. And he had won.

The Miracle That Wasn’t Expected

For years, Walter believed his mother had perished in the Holocaust. Then, in 1946, he learned she was alive in Sweden.

After Walter left on the Kindertransport, she had been deported to a labor camp near Riga, Latvia. She survived multiple Nazi work camps. Then, in what can only be called a miracle, Swedish officials rescuing Scandinavian Jews from the Terezin concentration camp near Prague inexplicably picked her up along the way.

Mother and son reunited. His father was gone. But against impossible odds, she had lived.

A Life of Purpose

After the war, Walter became a journalist in London, married, and had a daughter, Sonja, in 1951. He built a distinguished career in media. But the call to Israel never stopped tugging at him.

At 80—an age when most people retire to comfort—Walter made aliyah, immigrating to Jerusalem.

I’ve always felt a deep connection to the Jewish people and our homeland. Moving to Jerusalem was one of my greatest accomplishments.

And he didn’t slow down. In fact, he accelerated.

Two Guinness World Records

Today, at 102, Walter Bingham holds two Guinness World Records: the oldest working journalist and the oldest working radio show host.

From his home studio in Jerusalem, he produces and edits two weekly radio programs—“Walter’s World” on Israel National Radio and “The Walter Bingham File” on Israel News Talk Radio. He covers current events, human interest stories, and often joins international media at dangerous locations to report the news.

At 95, he went skydiving. At 100, he reenacted his Kindertransport journey for an educational documentary, traveling from Germany to England along the same route he took 85 years earlier. He’s hoping to break another world record by skydiving again at 102.

But perhaps his most important work happens in classrooms and at speaking engagements around the world. Walter has become a living witness to history, educating young people about the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the consequences of hatred.

Bearing Witness

When Walter speaks to students, he brings a Hitler Youth dagger inscribed with the words “Blood and Honor” in German. He passes it around and explains what those words meant to a Jewish child in 1930s Germany.

For me it meant Jewish blood, because after school, I saw my fellow pupils marching in Hitler Youth uniforms singing ‘When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, everything goes much better.’

He’s received honors from multiple countries, including Germany’s Order of Merit of Brandenburg. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog visited him at home for his 99th birthday, telling him: “You are a blessing. Your generation saved the world.”

He’s appeared in Harry Potter films, worked as Father Christmas at Harrods, modeled for international magazines, and became a beloved figure across generations.

Living History

At 102, Walter Bingham remains as committed to truth-telling as ever. He travels to Poland for Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He speaks out about contemporary antisemitism. He refuses to let the world forget.

His message to young people is clear: “If you don’t know the past, you can’t make the future any better.”

The boy who escaped on a train. The soldier who landed on Normandy. The journalist who never stopped bearing witness. Walter Bingham has lived through humanity’s darkest chapter and spent the rest of his life ensuring we never forget.

At 102, his voice remains strong. His purpose remains clear. And his message remains urgent: Remember. Educate. Stand against hatred wherever it appears.

Because the past is gone, but its lessons must never be.