Sir Nicholas Winton, rescuer of Jewish children 105 today

alexa · Oct 28, 2014

Sir Nicholas Winton: 105th birthday party for man who saved 669 children from the Nazis

100 guests gather to celebrate birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton, who helped evacuate children before second world war

It could almost be a normal birthday party, with music, presents and a cake. But the cake has 105 candles and many of the 100 or so guests who are here to celebrate the birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton owe him their life.

Winton's 105th birthday party is at the Czech embassy in London, and the guests here are the offspring of 669 children - mostly Jewish - rescued by Winton from almost certain death in the months before the second world war broke out in 1939. Most of their families ended up interned and murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Today they call themselves "Nicky's children".

There are around 6,000 people around the world today who owe Winton their lives. It was late in December 1938 when the stockbroker from Hampstead cancelled a holiday to go to Prague to see what was happening to refugees there. Winton spent only three weeks in the city - the most leave he could get from his job at home - but it was enough time for him to recognise the impending threat facing the refugees who had arrived following the Nazi invasion of the Czech Sudentenland in October 1938.

He immediately set about organising eight evacuations of the children on the Czech Kindertransport train. He advertised in newspapers for foster homes, got the necessary permits from the immigration office in the UK, and persuaded the Germans to let the children leave the country. When Winton returned to his job in London on 21 January 1939 he continued the rescue mission, working in the evenings until the last train was cancelled when war broke out in September 1939.

Ruth Hálová is 88 and has flown over for the party from South Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Others have come from as far as New Zealand and the USA. Hálová was one of the children who came over on one of the Kindertransport journeys and she stayed with a British family throughout the war while her mother was in the concentration camp at Terezín, Czechoslovakia.

I first met Nicky when he came to visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem," Hálová told the Guardian. "I was there just visiting family and they phoned me at 10 oclock at night and said: 'Nicholas Winton is here!' It was just amazing to meet him and to see him again today. It is never too long or too far to come and see Nicky.

But Hálová would never have met Winton had his scrapbook of the rescue not been passed to the BBC in 1988. Having kept quiet about the story for 50 years, when it emerged it did so in spectacular fashion on the programme That's Life. Sitting in the audience, Winton was astonished when Esther Rantzen announced live on air that the woman sitting next to him, and much of the rest of the audience, were people that he had saved.

The programme reunited Winton with one of his party guests, Lord (Alfred) Dubs, a Labour politician. Dubs's father fled Prague in March 1939 for England and they were reunited when Dubs arrived on the Kindertransport at Liverpool Street station. Dubs has become firm friends with Winton since. He says: "It's not often you can say to somebody: it's thanks to you that I am here at all. I make more speeches because I know Nicky than because of everything else I know."
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/nicholas-winton-birthday-man-saved-children-nazis

A very special man and one whose story never fails to bring tears to the eyes.

He is to receive the "Order of the White Lion" the Czech Republic's highest state honour

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29798434

antb0y · Oct 29, 2014

Hats off to Mr. Winton

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Sir Nicholas Winton, rescuer of Jewish children 105 today

alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

antb0y Well-Known Member

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Sir Nicholas Winton, rescuer of Jewish children 105 today

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antb0y Well-Known Member

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