Nicholas Winton - Hero of the Holocaust in Occupied Czechoslovakia - Dead at 106. Sad News.

[Peter Lemkin]

I just heard this on the news. Nicky, as everyone called him died just a few hours ago. I had the great privilege to meet Nicky Winton about fifteen years ago when he was a spry 91. It was here in Prague and it was the first time he'd returned in decades. He was introduced and he spoke very modestly about how exactly he saved the lives of so many hundreds of Jewish children from certain death at the hand of the Nazis when he was here in occupied Czechoslovakia as a British businessman. After he spoke, all applauded, then I witnessed something the likes of which I've never witnessed before or since. The meeting room in the Jewish Town Hall was full. After the applause died down. One by one people in their sixties and seventies started to stand up one at a time. About 40 stood by the end. In silence they walked up and surrounded Nicky. These were all children he had saved, but had never met before [some others he had met in England over the intervening years]. Each hugged and kissed Nicky and thanked them with tears in their eyes for saving their lives. There was not a dry eye in the room - but everyone was smiling as they were crying. Of those children Nicky saved, most have had children and grandchildren of their own and Nicky is now responsible for making the lives of many thousands possible - that otherwise would have been snuffed out in the Holocaust. One especially moving scene I saw was when a son of one of Nicky's children [then himself in his fifties] got on bended knee before Nicky to thank him for his life and for Nicky having saved his mother. He also told Nicky, 'No one deserves to have lived such a righteous and long life as you - you have earned all these years as few others!' Nicky was here in Prague just in December 2014 to get the highest Czech civilian honor. He was flown here by military jet and brought to stay at the Castle for the ceremony. He lived a very long and mostly happy life. He was a political activist and leftist to the end. He was simply amazingly modest about what he had done and always said he just did what was right and what was needed, and that everyone should always do the same - that he had done nothing special. That is not true - he was very special, and did what all too few thought or dare(d) to do then - or now!....... I'll post more about Nicky Winton soon. His death was inevitable at his advanced age, but he was in good health until the end and in flawless mental shape always. There is an interview with him from a few months ago in which his mind was far more agile then the interviewer aged about 30. If only there were more people like Nicky Winton. Goodbye Nicky. Glad to have met you, and glad you made such a positive difference on the World and so many thousands of lives! You have deserved your rest as few others! What a difference the actions of one good-hearted person can make! There is a film about Nicky's life called 'The Power Of Good'.

Nicky surrounded by some of his 'children'.

At his 106th
Taking a flight in a glider aged 94
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Nicholas Winton's children: The Czech Jews rescued by 'British Schindler'

Sir Nicholas Winton worked with relief organisations to set up the Czech Kindertransport

Dubbed the "British Schindler", Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps from Czechoslovakia as the outbreak of World War Two loomed.
His death at the age of 106 came on the same day 76 years ago when the train carrying the largest number of children - 241 - departed from Prague.
The reluctant hero worked to find British families willing to put up £50 to look after the boys and girls in their homes.
His efforts were not publicly known for almost 50 years.
More than 370 of the children he saved have never been traced and do not know the full story.



Media caption 'English Schindler' Winton was reunited with rescued children on That's Life in 1988
"One day my father called my brother and me and he said, 'sit down boys, you're going on a long journey'," said John Fieldsend, now 84.
Born in Germany, Mr Fieldsend's original name was Hans Heinrich Fiege.
His family fled to the Czech Republic when the Nazi persecution of the Jews began, prior to the outbreak of World War Two.
"As the train was leaving my mother took her wristwatch off, passed it through the window and simply said, 'remember us'."
Winton set up an office in a hotel in Prague Lia Lesser, 84, now lives in Birmingham but was originally taken in by a woman who lived on the Isle of Anglesey.
"We didn't know we wouldn't see our parents again," she said.
"I think they must have known there was a good chance they wouldn't see us again, and they were very brave to let us go."
"I never knew how my mother arranged it, she never talked about it," said Zuzana Maresova, who was born in Prague and later returned there.
She said her mother gave her a book about flowers and said, "you're going to a place where these flowers grow".
"That's all I knew," she said.
Winton helped 669 children out of Czechoslovakia in 1939 The humanitarian goals of Winton, who was born in the Hampstead district of north London in May 1909, was helped by a 1938 Act of Parliament that permitted the entry to the UK of refugee children under the age of 17, as long as money was deposited to pay for their eventual return home.
He set up an office in a hotel in Prague where he was quickly besieged by families desperate to get their children out before Nazi Germany invaded Czechoslovakia.
"There was a long queue and at the end of the queue was a small office, and we got some forms to fill in," said Ruth Halova, who was born in Prague.
"Within three months we got the names of foster parents who were prepared to take us in, and mine were a Mr and Mrs Jones from Birmingham."
The 90-year-old added: "There was a steam engine, the old wagons were made of wooden planks.
"Everybody got this label on cardboard with a piece of string with a number [on it], and then we were shoved into the carriages."
Milena Grenfell-Baines (left) and Ruth Halova are two of the people Winton rescued during his mission, which is commemorated by a statue at Prague railway station Winton, who lived in Pinkneys Green in Maidenhead, until his death, worked with relief organisations to set up the Czech Kindertransport, just one of a number of initiatives attempting to rescue Jewish children from Germany and the Nazi-occupied territories.
He organised a total of eight trains from Prague, with some other forms of transport also set up from Vienna.
Ms Maresova said: "We were rather excited because we thought it was some kind of adventure."
However, she added the image of all the parents' "pressed faces to the windows and tears running down their faces, and wondering why they're crying", had remained with her all her life.
Mrs Lesser said: "The only thing I had was a pendant with a picture of Moses on one side, and on the other were the Ten Commandments, and that's the only piece of jewellery that I brought with me.
"Apart from that I had a Czech storybook... I had no dolls, teddy bears or anything like that. I just had two suitcases with clothes in."
Winton's rescue operation was not publicly known until 1988 when he appeared on That's Life and had a surprise reunion with some of the people he saved "The next thing I remember was being handed over to a gentleman who couldn't speak Czech," said Ms Maresova of her arrival in England.
"He had a paper with all sorts of questions in English and Czech.
"Whenever he wanted to ask me something he pointed: 'Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something? Do you want to drink something? Do you want to use the toilet?'"
Mrs Lesser said: "In the early days I corresponded with my parents and then we corresponded through the Red Cross, and then eventually the letters stopped.
"I think that's when they were in Auschwitz."
When the war ended she said realised they had "perished".
Winton was knighted by the Queen in March 2003 Mr Fieldsend received a letter just after the war, in 1946, and said his first thought was: "Hooray, they're alive."
"My mother wrote: 'When you receive this letter the war will be over... we want to say farewell to you - to our dearest possession in the world, and only for a short time were we able to keep you'," he said.
The letter went on to list other members of his family who had been "taken".
In the letter, his father wrote: "We are going into the unknown with the hope that we shall yet see you again when God wills."
Mr Fieldsend described the letter as "fantastic", adding: "What wonderful parents I had."
Ms Halova was lucky to be reunited with her mother after the war and described it as "the answering of my biggest prayer".
Some 9,000 victims of the Nazis are buried in the Jewish cemetery at Terezin Memorial, formerly the Theresienstadt concentration camp, in the Czech Republic Milena Grenfell-Baines, 85, who now lives in Preston, Lancashire, was born in Prague and taken in by a family in Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester.
Her parents also survived the war but how she got on the train "remained a mystery" for many years, she said.
It was not until 1988, when Sir Nicholas's wife Grete discovered a scrapbook in their attic containing a mass of documents, including the names of the rescued children, that his heroism became known.
That year he was reunited with some of the rescued children, now adults, on the BBC's That's Life programme.
"It was an amazing surprise, but no more so than to Mr Winton who had come to the studio, totally unprepared that he was going to be confronted by us," said Mrs Grenfell-Baines, who had been invited to the TV studio without being told why.
More than one million people, mostly Jews, were murdered between 1940 and 1945 at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland Ms Halova described Winton as "an exceptional human being", adding: "We loved him from the first moment - who wouldn't love Nicky?
"He took so many risks and it was such a brilliant piece of organising," said Mr Fieldsend of Winton's efforts.
"I just thought it was amazing that a single human being could save 669 children and nobody knew about it," she added.
"Nicky, I am so proud to be one of your very many children."
Winton, whose work has been likened to that of the "saviour" of Jewish prisoners Oskar Schindler, was knighted by the Queen in March 2003.
A year earlier he was reunited with hundreds more of the children he saved, including Labour peer Lord Dubs and film director Karel Reisz.
Interviews compiled by Chris Browning

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British Schindler' Sir Nicholas Winton dies aged 106


Sir Nicholas Winton is credited with rescuing 669 Czech children from the Nazis Sir Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps, has died aged 106.
Sir Nicholas, then a stockbroker, arranged for trains to carry Jewish children out of occupied Prague.
The prime minister described him as a "great man" and the chief rabbi praised his "exceptional courage".
He died on the anniversary of the departure of a train in 1939 carrying the largest number of children - 241.
His son-in-law Stephen Watson said he died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital, Slough.
Sir Nicholas brought the children to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends, saving them from almost certain death, and then kept quiet about his exploits for a half-century.
He organised a total of eight trains from Prague, with some other forms of transport also set up from Vienna.
The Englishman who saved children from the Holocaust
Nicholas Winton photographed with one of the children he rescued in 1939

• Sir Nicholas was born Nicholas Wertheimer in 1909 to Jewish parents
  
• By 1938 he was a young stockbroker in London
  
• He dropped everything to go to Prague to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi occupation
  
• Sir Nicholas organised foster families for Jewish children in Britain, placing adverts in newspapers
  
• The 669 children travelled on eight trains across four countries
  
• Sir Nicholas's team persuaded British custom officials to allow all the children in despite incomplete documentation
  

The reluctant hero worked to find British families willing to put up £50 to look after the boys and girls in their homes.
Sir Nicholas whose work has been likened to that of the "saviour" of Jewish prisoners Oskar Schindler, was knighted by the Queen in March 2003.
The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, of which Sir Nicholas was former president, said his daughter Barbara and two grandchildren were at his side when he died.
'Moral courage'

His son Nick said of his father's legacy: "It is about encouraging people to make a difference and not waiting for something to be done or waiting for someone else to do it.
"It's what he tried to tell people in all his speeches and in the book written by my sister."


Media caption 'English Schindler' Winton was reunited with rescued children on That's Life in 1988
Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to Sir Nicholas, tweeting: "The world has lost a great man. We must never forget Sir Nicholas Winton's humanity in saving so many children from the Holocaust."
Michael Zantovsky, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom, who was a close friend described Sir Nicholas as "a positive man who radiated good".
"It was incredibly moving to be present at some of the gatherings of him with his so-called children and the children of his children. They all owe their existence to him."
'Unfailing courtesy'

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis praised Sir Nicholas' "exceptional courage, selflessness and modesty".
"He lived to see thousands of descendants of those whose lives he saved who were proud to call themselves members of his family, and who were inspired by his example to undertake outstanding charitable, humanitarian and educational initiatives," he said.
"I knew him to be a gentleman of unfailing old-world courtesy, with a warm heart and a ready self-deprecating wit."
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013, called Sir Nicholas a "giant of moral courage" and "one of the heroes of our time".
"Our sages said that saving a life is like saving a universe. Sir Nicholas saved hundreds of universes," he said.
The Refugee Council tweeted: "Very sad to hear the news of the passing of Sir Nicholas Winton. He was an amazing man who saved many lives."

[Matthew Hewitt]

RIP. Sad news but 106 is a fantastic innings. Few of us lead lives that long or leave behind such a genuinely inspirational legacy.

As an aside, I think the "British Schindler" tag is somewhat insulting personally. Given that Oskar Schindler is known primarily through Spielberg's fairytale version of the Holocaust and that the Liam Neeson character from that film bears scant resemblance to a man who was in reality of questionable morality and motive. In a fair, balanced world frauds the like of Schindler and Wiesenthal should be completely eclipsed by Winton, who was extremely modest and acted only out of a sense of human decency.

It speaks volumes that of the three names I typed in that last sentence, my spell-checker only picked up 'Winton' as an error...

[Lauren Johnson]

MH: no axes to grind here. Just interested in this phrase: "fairytale version of the Holocaust" Care to say more?

[Peter Lemkin]

Please...if you have things to say about Schindler, kindly start a thread for that. I'm not aware of any major failures on Oskar Shindler's part - he was 'good for what he was' - a business man working with the Nazis in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia [as well]. Had all other such business men done as he had, many hundreds of thousands more would have survived. It is a misnomer to use Schindler to 'explain' Winton, and people do only because Schindler is better known, as you point out.

Yes, Winton had a very long life and a very full one - full of doing wonderful things beyond what he did during the War, though nothing equaling that [a hard act to follow!]. Someone recently wrote to me asking about Winton and how to get in contact with him. I gave them the family's email address, but warned them to hurry, for at 106 one never knows. About a year ago some very stupid interviewer asked him a series of rather tasteless questions. One was if he believed in a god. Winton said he did not, but wasn't offended by those who did. They then asked Winton what he thought about his own death....Winton paused and looked at the woman as if to say 'what a stupid and thoughtless question', but answered, 'I'm not afraid of death, but I'm sure not looking forward to it!' He is survived by a daughter and son; she wrote his official biography; he lectures about his father and how one person can make a difference in history. Winton is survived by his aprox. 670 saved children and their thousands of grand and great-grand children who never would have existed beyond the Holocaust if not for Winton, who's work was more complex than one might think. His wife died a few years ago - and he has outlived a few of his rescued 'children' too. If interested there have been a number of good films made about Winton's life, work and his 'children' saved in the 'kindertransports' [the last of which was stopped by the Nazis - it contained the highest number of children of all of the trains.....and more were planned...but the Nazis decided to close this escape route down, after allowing it for a while. Nicky was crushed by the loss of that last train, as well as by knowing and seeing with his own eyes the parents of all those children saying 'goodbye Dear, we'll join you soon in England'; the parents knowing full well they were telling an untruth in order to save their children - as it was the only way to do so. The Nazi's would not allow any adults to get the same special passes and visas as the children obtained through Winton. I find it poignant that he died on the anniversary date of the last train that didn't make it 76 years to the day earlier.

One of the actual trains used - which carried many of his saved children for a repeat ride in 2009. Also, a statue in memory to Winton at the main train station in Prague at the correct track for all of his trains.

Winton kept modestly quiet about his humanitarian exploits for many years, until his wife Grete found a detailed scrapbook in their attic in 1988! It contained lists of the children, including their parents' names and the names and addresses of the families that took them in. By sending letters to these addresses, 80 of "Winton's children" were found in Britain. The world found out about his work in 1988 during an episode of the BBC television program 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 program asked whether any in the audience owed their lives to Winton, and if so, to stand more than two dozen people surrounding Winton rose and applauded with tears in their eyes.

Speaking on 28 October 2014, Winton said he acknowledged that he had "made a difference to a lot of people", but went on to say, "I don't think we've learned anything ... the world today is in a more dangerous situation than it has ever been."

[Matthew Hewitt]

MH: no axes to grind here. Just interested in this phrase: "fairytale version of the Holocaust" Care to say more?

I don't mean fairytale in the disparaging,"it's all make-believe" sense but rather in the way that the narrative is constructed as a fable and it's use of archetypes as characters. This is completely at odds with the pseudo-documentary surface of the film, which Spielberg lifted from the post-war European cinema of directors like Rossellini, Wajda and Pontecorvo. It's a either a deliberate and deeply cynical attempt at audience manipulation or the sign of a populist film-maker out of his depth with more 'serious' fare.

As Peter says though, that's really a discussion for another thread.