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Sir Nicholas George Winton<\/strong>\u00a0MBE<\/a>\u00a0(n\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0Wertheim<\/strong>; 19 May 1909 \u2013 1 July 2015) was a British stockbroker and\u00a0humanitarian<\/a>\u00a0who helped to rescue Jewish children who were at risk of being murdered by\u00a0Nazi Germany<\/a>\u00a0during\u00a0the Holocaust<\/a>. Born to\u00a0German-Jewish<\/a>\u00a0parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them\u00a0Jewish<\/a>, from\u00a0Czechoslovakia<\/a>\u00a0on the eve of\u00a0World War II<\/a>. On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia, he helped compile a list of children needing rescue and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfil the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them \u00a0This operation was later known as the Czech\u00a0Kindertransport<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(German for 'children's transport').<\/p>\n\n\n\n His humanitarian accomplishments remained unknown and unnoticed by the world for nearly 50 years until 1988 when he was invited to the BBC television programme\u00a0That's Life!<\/a><\/em>, where he was reunited with dozens of the children he had helped come to Britain and was introduced to many of their children and grandchildren. The British press celebrated him and dubbed him the \"British\u00a0Schindler<\/a>\". <\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In 2003, Winton was\u00a0knighted<\/a>\u00a0by Queen\u00a0Elizabeth II<\/a>\u00a0for \"services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from\u00a0Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia<\/a>\". \u00a0On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the\u00a0Czech Republic<\/a>, the\u00a0Order of the White Lion<\/a>\u00a0(1st class), by Czech President\u00a0Milo\u0161 Zeman<\/a>. Winton died on 1 July 2015, at the age of 106. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Winton was born on 19 May 1909 in\u00a0Hampstead<\/a>, London, to\u00a0Jewish<\/a>\u00a0parents Rudolph Wertheim (1881\u20131937), a bank manager, and Barbara (n\u00e9e<\/a>\u00a0Wertheimer, 1888\u20131978), <\/a><\/sup>\u00a0as the middle of three children. His elder sister was Charlotte (1908\u20132001) and his younger brother was Robert (1914\u20132009). \u00a0His parents were\u00a0German Jews<\/a>\u00a0who had moved to London two years earlier. \u00a0The family name was Wertheim, but they\u00a0changed<\/a>\u00a0it to Winton in an effort at integration. \u00a0They also\u00a0converted to Christianity<\/a>, and Winton was\u00a0baptised<\/a>. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1931, he moved to France and worked for the Banque Nationale de Cr\u00e9dit<\/a> in Paris. He also earned a banking qualification in France. Returning to London, he became a broker at the London Stock Exchange<\/a>. Though a stockbroker, Winton was also \"an ardent socialist who became close to Labour Party<\/a> luminaries Aneurin Bevan<\/a>, Jennie Lee<\/a> and Tom Driberg<\/a>\" Through another socialist friend, Martin Blake, Winton became part of a left-wing<\/a> circle opposed to appeasement<\/a> and concerned about the dangers posed by the Nazis. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n At school, he had become an outstanding fencer<\/a>, fencing both foil and epee, and was selected for the British team<\/a> in 1938. He had hoped to compete in the following Olympics<\/a>, but the games were cancelled because of World War II<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly before Christmas 1938, Winton was planning to travel to\u00a0Switzerland<\/a>\u00a0for a skiing holiday. Following a call for help from\u00a0Marie Schmolka<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Doreen Warriner<\/a>, \u00a0he decided instead to visit\u00a0Prague<\/a>\u00a0and help Martin Blake, \u00a0who was in Prague as an associate of the British Committee for Refugees from\u00a0Czechoslovakia<\/a>, \u00a0then in the process of being\u00a0occupied by Germany<\/a>, and had called Winton to ask him to assist in Jewish welfare work. Alongside the Czechoslovak Refugee Committee, the British and Canadian volunteers such as Winton,\u00a0Trevor Chadwick<\/a>, and\u00a0Beatrice Wellington<\/a>\u00a0worked in organising to aid children from Jewish families at risk from the\u00a0Nazis<\/a>. Many of them set up their office at a dining room table in a hotel in\u00a0Wenceslas Square<\/a>. \u00a0Altogether, Winton spent one month in Prague and left in January 1939, six weeks before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Other foreign volunteers remained, such as Chadwick, Warriner and Wellington. <\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In November 1938, following\u00a0Kristallnacht<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in Nazi-ruled Germany, the\u00a0House of Commons<\/a>\u00a0approved a measure to allow the entry into Britain of refugees younger than 17, provided they had a place to stay and a warranty of \u00a350 (equivalent to \u00a33,397 in 2021 was deposited per person for their eventual return to their own country <\/p>\n\n\n\n An important obstacle was getting official permission to cross into the Netherlands, as the children were to embark on the ferry at Hook of Holland<\/a>. Following Kristallnacht<\/a><\/em> in November 1938, the Dutch government officially closed its borders to any Jewish refugees. The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee<\/a> searched for them and returned any found to Germany, despite the horrors of Kristallnacht<\/em> being well known. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Winton succeeded, thanks to the guarantees he had obtained from Britain. Following the first train, the process of crossing the Netherlands went smoothly. Winton ultimately found homes in Britain for 669 children,[ <\/a><\/sup> many of whose parents perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp<\/a>. His mother worked with him to place the children in homes and later hostels.]<\/a><\/sup> Throughout the summer of 1939, he placed photographs of the children in Picture Post<\/a><\/em> seeking families to accept them. By coincidence, the names of the London and North Eastern Railway<\/a> steamers which operated the Harwich to Hook of Holland route included the Prague<\/em><\/a> and the Vienna<\/em><\/a>; the former can be seen in a 1938 Path\u00e9 Newsreel<\/a>. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n He also wrote to U.S. politicians such as President\u00a0Franklin D. Roosevelt<\/a>, asking them to take more children. <\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He said that two thousand more might have been saved if they had helped, but only Sweden took any besides those sent to Britain. \u00a0The last group of children, scheduled to leave Prague on 1 September 1939, was unable to depart. With Hitler's\u00a0invasion of Poland<\/a>\u00a0on the same day, the Second World War had begun.\u00a0Of the 250 children due to leave on that train, only two survived the war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Winton acknowledged the vital roles in Prague of Doreen Warriner<\/a>, Trevor Chadwick<\/a>, Nicholas Stopford, Beatrice Wellington<\/a>, <\/a><\/sup> Josephine Pike and Bill Barazetti (1914\u20132000), who also worked to evacuate children from Europe. Winton was in Prague for only about three weeks before the Nazis occupied the country<\/a>. <\/a><\/sup> He never set foot in the Prague main railway station<\/a>, although a statue of him is erected there. He later wrote that Chadwick \"then went to work and dealt with all the considerable problems at the Prague end and this work he continued to carry on even when it became difficult and dangerous when the Germans arrived. He deserves all praise\". <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the war, Winton worked for the International Refugee Organisation<\/a> and then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development<\/a> in Paris, where he met Grete Gjelstrup, a Danish secretary and accountant's daughter. They married in her hometown of Vejle<\/a> on 31 October 1948 <\/p>\n\n\n\n They had three children, the youngest of whom, Robin, had\u00a0Down's syndrome<\/a>. \u00a0The family insisted that their son Robin stay with them rather than go to a residential home as was the norm. Robin's death from\u00a0meningitis<\/a>\u00a0on the day before his sixth birthday affected Winton greatly and he founded a local support organisation which became Maidenhead\u00a0Mencap<\/a>. Winton stood, unsuccessfully, for the\u00a0town council<\/a>\u00a0in 1954; \u00a0he later found work in the finance departments of various companies. <\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Winton mentioned his humanitarian accomplishments in his election material while unsuccessfully standing for election to the Maidenhead town council in 1954. <\/sup>\u00a0Otherwise, he went unnoticed for half a century \u00a0until in 1988 his wife found a detailed scrapbook in their attic, <\/a><\/sup>\u00a0containing lists of the children, including their parents' names and the names and addresses of the families that took them in. She gave the scrapbook to\u00a0Elisabeth Maxwell<\/a>, a Holocaust researcher and wife of media magnate\u00a0Robert Maxwell<\/a> \u00a0Letters were sent to each of these known addresses and 80 of \"Winton's children\" were found in Britain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview on the BBC radio programme The Life Scientific<\/a><\/em>, Simon Wessely<\/a> described how his father Rudi, one of the rescued children, had a chance encounter with Winton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The wider world found out about his work in February 1988 <\/a><\/sup> during an episode of the BBC television programme That's Life!<\/a><\/em> when he was invited as a member of the audience. At one point, Winton's scrapbook was shown and his achievements were explained. The host of the programme, Esther Rantzen<\/a>, introduced Winton to children he had helped to rescue, including Vera Gissen <\/p>\n\n\n\nEarly life <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Rescue work <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Netherlands<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Family life <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Recognition <\/h3>\n\n\n\n