Nicholas Winton: A Silent Hero Who Rescued 669 Children From Nazis
Nicolas Winton is not an ordinary man. He’s an inspiration to the world. He was a live example that humanity still exist on Earth. Winton is a god for 669 children’s, who he saved from Nazi Group from being killed. He rescued 669 children’s from on the eve of Christmas and helped them to find their new homes in Britain.
His humanitarian accomplishments went unnoticed by the world for nearly 50 years. It wasn’t until “1988 That’s Life”, that he was reunited with the children, whom he saved. Let’s find out how his Humanitarian deed got into the spotlight after 50 years.
Nicholas Winton Biography
Winton was born on May 19, 1909, in West Hampstead, England. He was a well-known British Stock Broker. His Father’s name was Rudolph Wertheim and his mother’s name was Barbara. He has one elder sister named Charlotte and a younger brother named Robert. He married Grete Gjelstrup in 1948 and had three children.
In the year of 1931, he moved to France and worked for the Banque Nationale de Crédit in Paris. He also earned a banking qualification in France. He became a broker on his return to London. Winton died at the age of 106 on 1 July 2015 from cardiac arrest.
Rescue Mission
Winton was planning to travel to Switzerland for skiing on his holidays before Christmas in 1938 but his friend Martin Blake asked Winton to forego his planned ski vacation and visit him in Czechoslovakia and Winston decided to meet him in Czechoslovakia. After that Blake introduced Winton to his colleague, Doreen Wariner, and arranged for him to visit refugee camps.
On March 1939, when Winton heard of subsequent efforts of Jewish agencies in Britain to rescue German and Austrian Jewish children called as, which helped to bring about 10,000 unaccompanied children to safety in Great Britain. At that time Winton summoned a small group of people to organize a similar rescue operation for children imperilled by the impending German dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.
Nicholas Winton immediately established a Children’s Section. He used the name of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia. He soon began taking applications without authorization from his parents at his hotel in Prague. As his operation started to expand, he opened one more office in central Prague. After knowing this, thousands of parents lined up outside of Winton’s Children Section’s office. People were seeking a safe haven for their children and found it here.
Winton made a great effort to raise money through charity from the people and find foster homes to bring as many children as possible to Britain. The important obstacle was getting official permission to cross into the Netherlands, as the children were to embark on the ferry. After Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Dutch government officially closed its borders to any Jewish refugees.
Everything You Need To Know About Nicholas Winton
They started to search the refugees and returned them back to Germany, even though they know the horrors of Kristallnacht. On March 14, 1939, the very first transport of children organized by Winton left Prague by plane for London.
After this Winton organized seven further means of transport that departed by rail from Prague and across Germany to the Atlantic Coast, then by ship to Britain. In London, British foster parents waited to receive the children at a railway station. The last trainload of children left Prague on August 2, 1939.
The story came into the spotlight when Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988. The book contains all the information likes, like the list of the children, including their parents’ names and addresses of the families that took them in. After knowing this his wife gave the scrapbook to a Holocaust researcher named and wife of a media magnate.
Soon after knowing this, letters were sent to each of these known addresses out of which 80 of “Winton’s children” were found in Britain and then he was invited to appear on the BBC TV show named “That’s Life”.
When he was united with some of the children he saved, in this show, every person in the room stood up and started clapping. Winton didn’t know the reason why they were clapping but as soon as he realized, he was shocked and emotional.
Awards and Honours
Winton has won many awards and honors in his life but here we are going to discuss some of the most prestigious ones. Winton received one of the most important awards known as Lifetime Achievement in 2003 and In 2010, Winton was named a by the British Government.
He was rewarded for services to humanity, in recognition of his work on the Czech Kindertransport. On 28 October 2014, the Czech President awarded him the highest honor.
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