‘British Schindler’ helped children flee Nazi terror
He had to battle to be heard by British authorities but stockbroker Nicholas Winton’s persistance helped save hundreds of children from the Nazis
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When Nicholas Winton arrived in London from Czech-oslovakia in the late 1930s he was in a desperate hurry. The successful young stockbroker was worried about the situation in Czechoslovakia, recently annexed by the Germans.
The Jewish population there were subject to discrimination, detention and violence and with war looming Winton was trying to convince authorities to get help for people trying to get their children out.
Since he represented no organisation and had no experience assisting refugees it was hard for him to get any action from officials. His solution was to use a bit of deception. Winton borrowed some stationery from the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, printed “Children’s Section” underneath their title and appointed himself chairman of this non-existent division of an established group.
The ruse worked, the government listened and the organisation was forced to “adopt” him. His small white lie had given him enough legitimacy to save hundreds of Jewish children from death.
Winton, who died this week at the age of 106, kept his role quiet for 50 years before it was discovered by his wife.
This humble and reluctant hero, dubbed the British Schindler, will be widely mourned, not least by those whose lives he saved.
Winton was born in Hampstead in London in 1909, his parents were German Jews who had only arrived in England two years before. The family name was Wertheim but his parents changed it to Winton and they baptised their son in an Anglican church.
He was one of the first pupils at Stowe School when it opened in 1923 but he did not stay to get formal qualifications. He left school to work in a bank and paid for his own education at night school.
He earned accreditation in banking in France and later became a stockbroker. Despite his capitalist profession, he thought of himself as a socialist and was close to British Labour Party figures. In his leisure time he enjoyed sport, especially fencing and skiiing.
In December, 1938, Winton was preparing to embark on a skiing holiday with friend Martin Blake when Blake called him to say the skiing was off and he needed Winton’s help in Prague. Winton was easily persuaded to give his friend a hand with Czech refugees, but Winton was mainly concerned with the children caught up in the nightmare of Nazism.
He set up an office in a hotel and started taking down details of people who wanted to get their children out. When the lines of people coming to see him grew conspicuously long Winton’s friends bribed or distracted the Gestapo so the work could continue.
Winton then went to England to get official action over the increasing humanitarian crisis. His dogged determination to get something done was part of his personal mantra. He once said: “I work on the motto if something’s not impossible there must be a way of doing it.’’
He raised funds for the childrens’ transport and the £50 bond the government insisted on to help the refugees return as soon as possible. He also looked for homes for the hundreds of mostly Jewish children registered.
Over nine frantic months Winton worked at both his stockbroking job and his work with Czech refugees, helping 669 children to safety on what became known as the Kindertransport. Most would never see their parents again. In September, 1939, he was preparing to bring 250 more children when war broke out. He never found out what happened to them.
During the war he worked with the Red Cross and later joined the RAAF. He continued his humanitarian work after war ended, working for the International Refugee Organisation.
He later worked for various charities and earned an MBE in 1983 for his work establishing homes for the elderly.
He didn’t keep his pre-war refugee work entirely secret, he once mentioned it in a 1954 election leaflet while running for a seat on Maidenhead council, but it was rarely mentioned otherwise. Then, in 1988, his wife Grete discovered a scrapbook inside a locked suitcase in their attic documenting the lives he had saved.
The story became public and Winton was celebrated as a hero.
He was knighted in 2002 and in 2009 a statue of Winton was unveiled on a Prague train station.
Honour roll
1983: MBE for his work establishing homes for the elderly
2002 Knighted by the Queen for services to humanity
2009 A special Winton Train travelled from Prague to London to commemorate Winton’s Kindertransport. That year a statue was unveiled in his honour on Prague’s main railway station.
2012 Awarded the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan in the US.
2014 Awarded The Order of the White Lion by the Czech Republic, the country’s highest honour.
Originally published as ‘British Schindler’ helped children flee Nazi terror
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