Incredible real life story of Brit who saved 669 Jewish children from Nazis – & jaw-dropping moment he finally met them
FOR half a century Sir Nicholas Winton had been tormented by memories of the last train set to carry Jewish children out of Nazi occupied Europe.
Even though the British stockbroker had managed to save 669 youngsters from Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers, he had long remembered the 250 helpless souls forced to leave their carriages in the Czech capital Prague at the outbreak of World War Two in 1939.
Sir Nicholas had arranged for them all to be looked after by families in Britain.
The final group heading here on what became known as the kindertransport were stopped by the fascists when the borders were closed.
It wasn’t until broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen heard about his endeavours that the modest Londoner realised how life-changing his remarkable efforts had been.
She arranged for Sir Nicholas to sit in the front of the audience for an episode of her BBC1 consumer show That’s Life! in 1988.
Unknown to the secret hero most of the people in the studio had got out on one of his kinder transports.
Now the tearful moment when those holocaust survivors stand up to thank Nicholas is being immortalised in the movie One Life.
The older version of Nicholas, who died in 2015 aged 106, is played by Sir Anthony Hopkins and the younger, war era one, by Johnny Flynn.
Dame Esther told The Sun: “When I congratulated him on his wonderful achievement in saving so many children, his reply was ‘not enough’.
“He sounded deeply distressed.
“Nicky explained that he and his team had found families in the UK to take 250 more children, that they had all been given their visas and put on a train in Prague station, but that day war had been declared and the Germans had closed the borders.
“So at the last moment all those children had to be taken off the train.
“Hearing his distress, I was determined to find a way to bring home to him what a wonderful achievement it had been to save so many lives that would otherwise have been lost.”
Nicholas was a carefree 29-year-old stockbroker heading for a skiing holiday in Switzerland in 1938 when a friend asked for his help.
They told him how the lives of Jewish families were in danger in Czechoslovakia following the annexation of part of the eastern European country by Hitler.
Kinder transports were being arranged by various organisations in Germany, Austria and Poland.
The British Government had offered to let in Jewish children if a home had been found for them in the UK.
But there was no coordinated effort to rescue the defenceless youth of Czechoslovakia.
Nicholas, the son of two German-born Jews, set about trying to keep them out of the grips of Hitler’s murderous SS.
His mother Barbara helped him to find prospective homes in Britain, while Nicholas dealt with the delicate politics of moving the under 18 year-old Jews through Nazi Germany.
For nine months he co-ordinated the effort with a team of dedicated volunteers who helped to get the children on to seven trains.
Labour peer Lord Alf Dubs, 90, who got out on one of them, says: “The great thing about him is that he saw what was happening in Prague in the autumn of ‘38 and unlike people who say ‘this is awful’ and walk away, he said this is awful and stayed to do something.
“He battled with the British government to get permits, he battled with the Nazis who were suspicious of him.”
Only Britain and Sweden came to the aid of the refugees.
Lord Dubs recalls: “I was six years old, I was one of the youngest.
“I remember my mum took me to the station in Prague to see me off and there were soldiers with swastikas on their arms standing in the background, lots of anxious parents saying goodbye to their kids, maybe for the last time.
“The train left Prague, crossed Germany and when we got to the Dutch border the older ones cheered because they were out of reach of the Nazis.”
His Jewish father Hubert had fled to England before that and his non-Jewish mother later got out, but many other relatives did not survive the Holocaust.
Other children never saw their parents again after being waved off in the Czech capital Prague.
That was the terrible fate of Londoner Eva Werner, 98, whose mum and dad ended up in the Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp.
Hitler’s anti-semitism was so hate-filled that these Catholics were rounded up just because of a Jewish heritage.
Eva, who was aged 14 when she got on the train, says: “It was awful parting, I will never forget the look in my mother’s eyes. It was an awful thing to live through.”
The kinder transport due out of Prague on September 1 1939 was stopped because Germany had invaded Poland.
It is believed that of the 250 children who were denied their escape to safety only two survived the war.
According to the testimony of the Nazis around four million Jews were murdered in extermination camps and another two million were shot dead or died from other causes such as starvation.
Nicholas spoke to no one about his secret operation – not even his wife Grete.
It was only when she came across boxes in their loft in Maidenhead, Berks, containing details of the children he had saved that the truth emerged.
Esther asked one of her researchers to track down as many of the people listed as possible and invited them to the studio.
Nicholas thought he was just there to talk about the kinder transport and did not know they were in the audience – even when he sat next to them.
For the veteran broadcaster, the moment when the women thanked Nicholas for saving their lives was too much for her to bear.
Esther says: “When the ladies took his hand and thanked Nicky for their lives, I had to stop, get off my chair, and ask the team to stop the recording while I left the set and wiped away my tears.
“Each time I watch that clip, I find myself in tears again.”
The episode had a huge impact on those survivors of the Holocaust.
Lord Dubs, who was watching at home, suddenly found out who was responsible for rescuing him from humanity’s darkest hour.
He says: “I regarded him as the person who saved my life.”
While Eva suddenly opened up to her daughter about the horrors of the Holocaust for the first time.
Nicholas certainly wasn’t the only British person to go above and beyond to help out.
Altogether nearly 10,000 Jewish children made it out on trains organised by various organisations.
But Dame Stephanie Shirley, 90, who arrived on one from Vienna aged five thanks to Christian and Jewish activists, thinks that what sets Nicholas apart is how much his small-scale operation achieved.
She says: “What was remarkable about Nicky Winton was that it was just him and his mother and a couple of volunteers.
“It was very amateur and they did it on their own.”
It is believed that less than one hundred of the 10,000 kinder transport children are still alive in the UK.
But the story will live on in younger generations, who also would not be here without Nicholas.
Karen Goodman’s mum Margit Goodman, who died aged 93 four years ago, was aged 17 when she got on a Winton train out of Prague in June 1939.
The 72-year-old social worker from London says: “She came alone and her family were rounded up and were murdered.
“She knew what was likely to happen to her parents when she stepped on the train. It had a lifelong impact on my mum.
”And without Nicholas I wouldn’t be here, nor would my mum’s four great grandchildren.”
Nicholas was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to humanity.
But he remained a reluctant hero.
Only after his death in 2015 was the Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust set up to document his work.
It is run by his surviving relatives.
Karen says: “They are the most lovely, unassuming family.”
When One Life, which also stars Jonathan Pryce and Helena Bonham Carter, reaches cinemas on January 5 next year his selfless acts are sure to be known even further afield.
It will be a timely reminder of how one act of kindness can reverberate for ever.
The film’s title itself alludes to a famous Jewish saying: “Anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”