SIR NICHOLAS WINTON
G'day folks,
Welcome to a great story of a humanitarian who saved hundreds of kids prior to the outbreak of war. He also is 105 years-of-age.
Nicholas Winton is known for organising
the rescue of 669 Czech children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the 9
months before war broke out in 1939. The story became known to the public in 1988 when it
featured on That’s Life, a BBC TV programme hosted by Esther Rantzen. In 2003
he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Humanity for
this work.
In December 1938, Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old London
stockbroker, was about to leave for a skiing holiday in Switzerland, when he
received a phone call from his friend Martin Blake asking him to cancel his
holiday and immediately come to Prague: "I have a most interesting
assignment and I need your help. Don't bother bringing your skis."
When Winton arrived, he was asked to help in the camps, in which thousands of
refugees were living in appalling conditions.
In
October 1938, after the ill-fated Munich Agreement between Germany and the
Western European powers, the Nazis annexed a large part of western
Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. Winton was convinced that the German
occupation of the rest of the country would soon follow. To him and many
others, the outbreak of war seemed inevitable. The news of Kristallnacht,
the bloody pogrom (violent attack) against German and Austrian Jews on
the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, had reached Prague. Winton decided to
take steps.
"I
found out that the children of refugees and other groups of people who were
enemies of Hitler weren't being looked after. I decided to try to get permits
to Britain for them. I found out that the conditions which were laid down for
bringing in a child were chiefly that you had a family that was willing and
able to look after the child, and £50, which was quite a large sum of money in
those days, that was to be deposited at the Home Office. The situation was
heartbreaking. Many of the refugees hadn't the price of a meal. Some of the
mothers tried desperately to get money to buy food for themselves and their
children. The parents desperately wanted at least to get their children to
safety when they couldn't manage to get visas for the whole family. I began to
realize what suffering there is when armies start to march."
In terms
of his mission, Winton was not thinking in small numbers, but of thousands of
children. He was ready to start a mass evacuation.
"Everybody
in Prague said, 'Look, there is no organization in Prague to deal with
refugee children, nobody will let the children go on their own, but if you want
to have a go, have a go.' And I think there is nothing that can't be done
if it is fundamentally reasonable."
Winton contacted the governments of nations he thought could take in the children. Only Sweden and his own government said yes. Great Britain promised to accept children under the age of 18 as long as he found homes and guarantors who could deposit £50 for each child to pay for their return home.
Winton
had to find funds to use for repatriation costs, and a foster home for each
child. He also had to raise money to pay for the transports when the children's
parents could not cover the costs. He advertised in British newspapers, and in
churches and synagogues. He printed groups of children's photographs all over
Britain. He felt certain that seeing the children's photos would convince
potential sponsors and foster families to offer assistance. Finding sponsors
was only one of the endless problems in obtaining the necessary documents from
German and British authorities.
"Officials
at the Home Office worked very slowly with the entry visas. We went to them
urgently asking for permits, only to be told languidly, 'Why rush, old boy?
Nothing will happen in Europe.' This was a few months before the war broke out.
So we forged the Home Office entry permits."
On March
14, 1939, Winton had his first success: the first transport of children left
Prague for Britain by airplane. Winton managed to organize seven more
transports that departed from Prague's Wilson Railway Station. The groups then
crossed the English Channel by boat and finally ended their journey at London's
Liverpool Street station. At the station, British foster parents waited to
collect their charges. Winton, who organized their rescue, was set on matching
the right child to the right foster parents.
The last
trainload of children left on August 2, 1939, bringing the total of rescued
children to 669. It is impossible to imagine the emotions of parents sending
their children to safety, knowing they may never be reunited, and impossible to
imagine the fears of the children leaving the lives they knew and their loved
ones for the unknown.
On
September 1, 1939 the biggest transport of children was to take place, but on
that day Hitler invaded Poland, and all borders controlled by Germany were
closed. This put an end to Winton's rescue efforts. Winton has said many times
that the vision that haunts him most to this day is the picture of hundreds of
children waiting eagerly at Wilson Station in Prague for that last aborted
transport.
"Within
hours of the announcement, the train disappeared. None of the 250 children
aboard was seen again. We had 250 families waiting at Liverpool Street that day
in vain. If the train had been a day earlier, it would have come through. Not a
single one of those children was heard of again, which is an awful
feeling."
The
significance of Winton's mission is verified by the fate of that last trainload
of children. Moreover, most of the parents and siblings of the children Winton
saved perished in the Holocaust.
After the
war, Nicholas Winton didn't tell anyone, not even his wife Grete about his
wartime rescue efforts. In 1988, a half century later, Grete found a scrapbook
from 1939 in their attic, with all the children's photos, a complete list of
names, a few letters from parents of the children to Winton and other
documents. She finally learned the whole story. Today the scrapbooks and other
papers are held at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority, in Israel.
Grete
shared the story with Dr. Elisabeth Maxwell, a Holocaust historian and the wife
of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Robert Maxwell arranged for his newspaper
to publish articles on Winton's amazing deeds. Winton's extraordinary story led
to his appearance on Esther Rantzen's BBC television program, That's Life.
In the studio, emotions ran high as Winton's "children" introduced
themselves and expressed their gratitude to him for saving their lives. Because
the program was aired nationwide, many of the rescued children also wrote to
him and thanked him. Letters came from all over the world, and new faces still
appear at his door, introducing themselves by names that match the documents
from 1939.
The
rescued children, many now grandparents, still refer to themselves as
"Winton's children." Among those saved are the British film director
Karel Reisz (The French Lieutenant's Woman, Isadora, and Sweet Dreams),
Canadian journalist and news correspondent for CBC, Joe Schlesinger (originally
from Slovakia), Lord Alfred Dubs (a former Minister in the Blair Cabinet), Lady
Milena Grenfell-Baines (a patron of the arts whose father, Rudolf Fleischmann,
saved Thomas Mann from the Nazis), Dagmar Símová (a cousin of the former U.S.
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright), Tom Schrecker, (a Reader's Digest
manager), Hugo Marom (a famous aviation consultant, and one of the founders of
the Israeli Air Force), and Vera Gissing (author of Pearls of Childhood)
and coauthor of Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Generation.
Winton
has received many acknowledgements for his humanitarian pre-war deeds. He
received a letter of thanks from the late Ezer Weizman, a former president of
the State of Israel. He was made an Honorary Citizen of Prague. In 1993, Her
Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, awarded him the MBE (Member of the British
Empire), and on October 28, 1998, Václav Havel, then president of the Czech
Republic, awarded him the Order of T.G. Masaryk at Hradcany Castle for his
heroic achievement. On December 31, 2002, Winton received a knighthood from
Queen Elizabeth II for his services to humanity. Winton's story is also the
subject of two films by Czech filmmaker Matej Mináč: All My Loved Ones
and the award-winning Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good.
Today,
Sir Nicholas Winton, resides at his home in Maidenhead, Great Britain. He still
wears a ring given to him by some of the children he saved. It is inscribed
with a line from the Talmud, the book of Jewish law. It reads: "Save one life,
save the world."
Now check out this short video:
Clancy's comment: Love ya work, Sir Nicholas. Well done.
I'm ...
Think about this!
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