UK: Rescuer of Jewish children from Holocaust turns 105
Source: Romea
Today Sir Nicholas Winton, the man who saved 669 Jewish children from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, celebrates his 105th birthday. After celebrating yesterday with his family at his home in Maidenhead, he is scheduled to attend another party today at the Czech Embassy in London to which many of those whom he saved have been invited and where his daughter, Barbara Winton, will launch a book about her father's life.
Just before the outbreak of WWII, Winton organized the transport of 669 Czechoslovak Jewish children from what was then the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Britain. He arranged documents for them and found British families to take them in.
The first of Winton's trains carrying the Jewish children left Prague's main train station in May 1939. In total he managed to get 669 children out, most of whose families perished during the war; one train which was supposed to depart Prague on 1 September 1939 with 250 children on board was forbidden to leave by the Nazis.
The public did not learn of Winton's meritorious actions for a long time. Holocaust historian Elisabeth Maxwell helped publicize them.
Read more: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/uk-rescuer-of-jewish-children-from-holocaust-turns-105#
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)One of the very few persons who correctly understood the threat to Jews that Hitler's Germany posed and who proactively took steps to rescue almost 670 Jewish children who, he had not intervened would almost certainly have perished. A real mensh.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)GETPLANING
(846 posts)The most humble man I have ever listened to.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)madamesilverspurs
(15,805 posts)to keep working toward a world in which heroes are no longer necessary.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Skittles
(153,169 posts)people like Sir Nicholas Winton are at the very top of my list - I like to think I would be that kind of person under those circumstances
Jack Rabbit
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