A Hero For The Children

Sir Nicholas Winton was born in London in 1909, and in 1938 when he was 29 years old, he decided that he was going to make a difference. Right before a ski trip, which he cancelled after, Winton was informed by his friend Martin Blake to go to Prague to see the situation of all the refugees who were attempting to flee from Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany’s wrath. So, Winton traveled to Czechoslovakia where he saw several refugee camps, courtesy of Blake and a woman that was introduced to him by Blake as Doreen Warriner. He found out that they were trying to relocate the displaced adults and that there was a program called Kindertransport which was meant to help out the German and Austrian Jewish children by bringing them to Britain. This sparked an idea and when Winton got back to Britain, he began raising money and was able to form an agreement with the government which would allow the rescued children to be raised by British host families until they were 18 when they would then be given 50 pounds each. Winton, his mother, and other volunteers worked tirelessly to set up the eventual homes for the children and on March 14, 1939 the first plane full of children made their way from Czechoslovakia to Britain. Following this German invaded Czech but Winton persisted and had seven more trips made via train, the last one leaving on August 2nd, 1939. There was meant to be one more trainload but because Germany invaded Poland, triggering Britain to declare war, it was cancelled, causing Winton grief over the children who were never heard from. However, he had managed to rescue 669 kids, which was never known by the masses after the war even though he had not hidden what he had done. In 1988, his wife Grete, found a scrapbook full of photos and names of all the rescued children. Later, in 2002, Winton appeared on a television show called “That’s Life!”, where he met some of the kids that he had helped. Sir Nicholas Winton was given the Knighthood as well as other honors including Freedom of the Cities (Prague and Britain), and the Order of the White Lion.