Biography

Sir Nicholas Winton (born 19 May 1909 in London) is a British stock broker and humanitarian worker.
Nicholas Winton was one of three children born to parents of German-Jewish origin. In 1907 the family moved from Germany to Hampstead in England, where little Nicholas attended grammar school. At this time the family changed its original name Wertheimer to Winton. Together with his brother, Nicholas attended secondary school. In 1923, however, he transferred to a boarding school in Stowe. Thanks to his mathematics teacher, he discovered the secrets of numbers and mathematics became the deciding force in the selection of his future profession. Nicholas Winton left school without matriculating and attended evening courses while volunteering at the Military Bank.

Some time later, Nicholas left for Hamburg where he gained experience at Behrens Bank. At the same time, he was studying a university course on the theory of social economics.

After moving from Hamburg to Berlin, he began to work for Wassermann Bank.

In 1931 he left Germany for France where he worked for the Banque Nationale de Crédit in Paris. Here he also earned a banking qualification. After his return to London he worked for several banking houses and over time, thanks to his family, relatives and friends, who from the mid-1930s began to flee Hitler and Germany, he began to realise the mounting danger of Nazism.

Before Christmas 1938, Nicholas Winton had his bags packed for a ski vacation in Switzerland, but after a telephone conversation with his friend, Martin Blake, he decided to go directly to turbulent Prague, where he immediately began to organise rescue transports for primarily Jewish children who faced death in Nazi extermination camps.