A New Name You Should know
Well, I got sandbagged twice while waiting for the wife to get home from church. I like to think I am fairly savvy on Holocaust stuff, and I despise Fakebook, yet I read a post there that made me go “whoa” and start looking to see if there was any historical truth – and there is. So let’s meet Nicholas Winton, a 29 year old stockbroker who had a skiing trip planned in 1938. Guess he wanted a break from his primary sport, fencing (and he was a good one, slated for the 1940 UK Olympic team.)
Nicholas Winton (1909-2015) was a stockbroker born in West Hampstead in London. His parents were of German-Jewish ancestry but chose to have their son baptised in the Anglican Church.
Winton was asked to come to Prague by his friend Martin Blake, a teacher at Westminster School and a member of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia. Blake introduced Winton to Doreen Wariner, who showed Winton the overcrowded refugee camps. About The Holocaust
Blake showed Winton the people crowding Prague, trying to get out of the occupied Sudetenland (think: Bohemia, what is now western Czech) living in freezing, overcrowded camps. Winton knew there was a British policy to allow refugees children in if host families and financial guarantees could be arranged – but no one was doing it. Fifty pounds per child…if the exchange rate was the same as post-war when a pound was worth $4, that’s $200 each. A bit over GBP 4000 nowadays.
Alongside the Czechoslovak Refugee Committee, the British and Canadian volunteers such as Winton, Trevor Chadwick, and Beatrice Wellington worked in organising to aid children from families at risk from the Nazis. Many of them set up their office at a dining room table in a hotel in Wenceslas Square. Altogether, Winton spent three weeks in Prague and left in January 1939, two months before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
An important obstacle was getting official permission to cross into the Netherlands, as the children were to embark on the ferry at The Hook of Holland. Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Dutch government officially closed its borders to any Jewish refugees. The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee searched for them and returned any found to Germany, despite the horrors of Kristallnacht being well known.
Winton succeeded, thanks to the guarantees he had obtained from Britain. Following the first train-full of refugees to the Netherlands, escorted by Quaker Tessa Rowntree, the process of crossing went smoothly. Winton ultimately found homes in Britain for 669 children, many of whose parents perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp. His mother worked with him to place the children in homes and later hostels.
669 kids (or 554, it varies – ed.) . Strangers. Most due to become orphans. Can you imagine the parents’ feelings, sending their kids away probably forever – knowing they may never see them again, but knowing the alternative probably was worse. Can you imagine the work of getting British strangers to pony up contributions for that many kids – in the middle of a depression?
He also wrote to U.S. politicians such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, asking them to take more children. He said that two thousand more might have been saved if they had helped, but only Sweden took any besides those sent to Britain. The last group of children, scheduled to leave Prague on 1 September 1939, was unable to depart. With Hitler’s invasion of Poland on the same day, the Second World War had begun. Of the 250 children due to leave on that train, only two survived the war.
Of the 669 children saved from the Holocaust through Winton’s efforts, more than 370 have never been traced. BBC News suggested in 2015 that they may not know the full story of how they survived the war.
Incredible job. But… now there was a war on. Winton registered as a conscientious objector and served with the Red Cross. He retracted his CO status in 194o and joined the RAF.
In 1940, he rescinded his objections and joined the Royal Air Force, Administrative and Special Duties Branch. Initially he was an aircraftman, rising to sergeant and on 22 June 1944 he was commissioned as an acting pilot officer on probation. On 17 August 1944, he was promoted to pilot officer on probation.
He was promoted to the rank of war substantive flying officer on 17 February 1945, staying in the Air Force after the war. He relinquished his commission on 19 May 1954, retaining the honorary rank of flight lieutenant.
Other than a passing reference when he ran for public office once in 1954, Winton didn’t mention his pre-war work. His wife found an old scrapbook in their attic in 1988, which told of his work and the kids he had saved. They gave the scrapbook to a Holocaust researcher, probably thinking they were done with it.
Otherwise, he went unnoticed for half a century until in 1988 his wife found a detailed scrapbook in their attic, containing lists of the children, including their parents’ names and the names and addresses of the families that took them in. He gave the scrapbook to Elisabeth Maxwell, a Holocaust researcher and wife of media magnate Robert Maxwell. Letters were sent to each of these known addresses and 80 of “Winton’s children” were found in Britain.
The wider world found out about his work in February 1988 during an episode of the BBC television programme That’s Life! when he was invited as a member of the audience. At one point, Winton’s scrapbook was shown and his achievements were explained. The host of the programme, Esther Rantzen, introduced Winton to children he had helped to rescue, including Vera Gissen.
In a later, follow-up That’s Life! programme at which Winton was also in the audience, Rantzen asked whether anybody in the audience was among the children who owed their lives to Winton, and if so, to stand: more than two dozen people surrounding Winton rose and applauded. Rantzen then asked if anyone present was the child or grandchild of one of the children Winton saved, and the rest of the audience stood.
THAT must have been a moment! That’s Life! One of the articles mentioned that there are over 6,000 descendants they know of from the children Winton helped rescue. 60 Minutes
To celebrate his 100th birthday, Winton flew over the White Waltham Airfield in a microlight piloted by Judy Leden, the daughter of one of the boys he saved. His birthday was also marked by the publication of a profile in The Jewish Chronicle.
Since he was born Jewish, he cannot be honored at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations, as that is reserved for non-Jews.
He did receive an MBE in 1983 for founding a string of retirement homes and was knighted in 2003 for his work with the Kinderstransport. He received numerous other honors as well, including the Czech Republic’s highest honor, the Order of the White Lion. (Also awarded that year, the same medal was given to Sir Winston Churchill. Pretty august company!)
Winton passed on July 1, 2015, the 76th anniversary of the departure of one of his trains. Like many leaders, he constantly credited the other people he worked with for making the Kinderstransport happen.
If you are fortunate enough to pass through the Praha Hlavni Nadraz’i (Prague Main Train Station) you will see the statue pictured above at Track 1. That small bespectacled fella? A giant who asked what he could do to help.
Category: None, We Remember, WWII
Thanks for posting this. Great way to start the day.
Just damn! We’ll done sir.
All too few know the feeling of saving a life. That man saved hundreds and when you take into account their descendants, thousands. There has to be a special place in heaven for a person like that.
Well done Sir, rest well.