Intro

Nicholas Winton

A British stockbroker and humanitarian who rescued 669 mainly Jewish Czechoslovak children from death by transporting them to Great Britain in 1939.

Seventy years ago, Nicholas Winton, a young man at the time, realised the seriousness of the situation and instead of taking a relaxing holiday in Switzerland left for Prague, where he started organising rescue missions for mainly Jewish children whose lives were threatened by Nazi death camps. Between March and September 1939, he managed to rescue and transport 669 children by train from Prague to London. The children later found sanctuary in the homes of British citizens, and the families of the rescued children have since grown to some 5,000 members. In the following fifty years, Nicholas Winton did not tell anyone about his rescue mission. While cleaning up the attic many years later, his wife came across documents connected with the children's transports. Historian Elisabeth Maxwell later organised a meeting between Nicholas Winton and the rescued children on a BBC television programme. Since Nicholas Winton's story became public, it has attracted the attention of increasing numbers of people. Nicholas Winton, who has devoted himself to caring for the elderly among other charitable pursuits, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and last year was inducted into the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk by Czech President Václav Klaus. Czech pupils from the primary school in the town of Kunžak prepared a petition, supported by many other primary and secondary school students, asking the Norwegian parliament to award Sir Nicholas Winton the Nobel Peace Prize. The petition had been signed by 53 851 people as of 21 October 2008. Winton planned another train transport for 3 September 1939. Unfortunately, the train never left to take more children to safety, as World War II broke out on 1 September 1939.