Winton's rescue of Jewish children revealed after 50 years

LONDON (AP) — "Is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton?" asked the presenter of the popular BBC magazine program "That's Life".

[...] he didn't talk about it for decades, until his wife discovered documents in their attic that revealed the story and for the first time allowed the rescued children to know and thank their savior.

The story of Winton's exploits led former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to dub him "Britain's Schindler", in reference to the German businessman Oskar Schindler, who famously saved Jewish lives during the war.

Returning to Britain and finding there was no one working on the problem of how to get the children out, Winton borrowed the headed paper of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia and underneath typed the words "Children's Section."

After the story came to light, Winton's wife Grete persuaded him to talk about what had happened, and many of the children — now parents and grandparents themselves — contacted him to thank him for saving their lives.

Among the well-known people saved by Winton were American scientist Ben Abeles, British film director Karel Reisz and Canadian journalist Joe Schlesinger.

A keen fencer who lost his chance to compete at the Olympics because of the outbreak of war, Winton worked with his younger brother Bobby to found the Winton Cup, still Britain's main team fencing competition.