Sir Nicholas Winton has died, caution, this thread might make you cry

GingerCoffee · Jul 4, 2015

Quoted from a post on the Straight Dope Forums by Boyo Jim:

In 1938 Nicky was a British stockbroker planning a ski trip to Switzerland when his ski buddy called and bailed out of the trip. His friend was in Prague and had been swept up in assisting Czech refugees, mainly Jews, who were threatened by the recent Nazi occupation. Nicky decided to go to Prague and help his friend.

When he got there he was a bit overwhelmed, but decided to carve off a little piece of the problem and make it his own -- saving the children. He opened up an "office" in the dining room of the hotel he was in, and with 3 friends formed the British Committee for Refugees From Czechoslovakia, dubbed himself the Honorary Secretary for the "Children's Section", and got to work.

He collected names of parents who wanted to get their children out of the country even if unable to accompany them. Almost none of these parents survived the war. He collected the name and a photograph of every child, eventually compiling a list of some 2,000.

He started writing letters to governments all over the world looking for countries who would take unaccompanied child refugees. He only found one -- Great Britain. And there were conditions -- he had to find a family to sponsor and host each child, and post a 50 pound bond for each. He also had to negotiate passage through other countries, including Germany itself and the Netherlands, to build a route for the refugees to travel. He returned to England to build the necessary organization and raise the necessary money to do it.

And somehow he did. He found the money and sponsor families for more than 600 children and brought them to London. He marketed the kids like a product -- he produced post cards with the pictures of half a dozen kids on each and let the prospective sponsors shuffle through them to pick out who they wanted. He also did some checking (what I've learned so far is sketchy on detail) to vet the sponsors and offer some assurance to parents and children they weren't to be consigned to slave labor or a hellhole.

Several "shipments" of the kids came through with little trouble, until the one scheduled to leave Prague on September 1, 1939. War in Poland broke out, the Germans sealed the border and stopped the train from loading. Almost all of the kids who gathered for that final train were later killed in the concentration camps.

And that was the end of it. Nicky packed away his documents, joined the RAF, and by his own account never gave much more thought to it until his wife found his documents and started asking questions. And he told her the story.

And his wife got the documents into the hands of a BBC producer who recognized a great story when she heard it. And she had the list of all the children who made it to England, and had the brilliant idea of seeking them out. She reached about a hundred, most of whom had never heard of Nicky and never known how they had got out of Czechoslovakia when almost no one else in their family survived.

And then the BBC pulled off a version of This is Your Life on Nicky, called That's Life. They got him into a TV studio audience on some pretense, and most of the rest of the audience was made up of the now adult children who he'd gotten out of Czechoslovakia. And soon it dawned on him that this program was about him, and all those people were there to meet him and thank him, and his tears began to flow.
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There are more videos on Sir Nicky's life if anyone is interested.

I can't help but note the parallels in the book I'm reading, Orphan Train. Except here in the US many of the kids did not fare so well. People took in orphans essentially for slave labor.

D'hai · Jul 4, 2015

Thanks for sharing this, I did not know about this amazing person and now I feel better for knowing he existed and what he has done for humanity not even bragging about it. His face at the end shouts: "I just did what felt right." These are the types of people that I would like to meet more examples of in current life, that do the right thing simply because it is the right thing not for money, social position, reputation or any other motive.

Mckk · Jul 5, 2015

This makes me think I really ought to go see that memorial statue of him at Hlavni Nadrazi (the main train station in Prague), considering I live in Prague. I actually don't even know which platform it's on...

Wreybies · Jul 5, 2015

I've seen that video before, but it never hurts to see it again. If ever someone deserved their OBE, it's him.

GingerCoffee · Jul 5, 2015

Mckk said: ↑

This makes me think I really ought to go see that memorial statue of him at Hlavni Nadrazi (the main train station in Prague), considering I live in Prague. I actually don't even know which platform it's on...
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I thought about you being in Prague. I was curious if you'd heard of him before and what they thought of him there.

Mckk · Jul 5, 2015

GingerCoffee said: ↑

I thought about you being in Prague. I was curious if you'd heard of him before and what they thought of him there.
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I heard of him only thanks to Facebook actually. When I mentioned the name, my husband recognised it as someone who saved Jewish children, but only vaguely. I asked him just now if the Czechs have an opinion of Winton and he says he doesn't think most people actually know about him, and thus there's probably no general opinion of him either. However he tells me Winton was recently in Prague and met with their president, so he's certainly not completely unknown.

Lemex · Jul 5, 2015

That's a beautiful video. Things like that give me hope in dark times.

Torack · Jul 6, 2015

That guy was awesome, and what he did is something to aspire to. If people talked about his death a little more, it could encourage others to emulate what he did and make the world a little better to live in.

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Sir Nicholas Winton has died, caution, this thread might make you cry

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GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

Sir Nicholas Winton has died, caution, this thread might make you cry

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