Sir Nicholas Winton

Despite Sir Nicholas’s humble and inspiring statement, it was more than just being in the right place at the right time, as his life story will show.

Sir Nicholas Winton was born in Hampstead in 1909 to Jewish parents.

In December 1938, at the age of 29, Winton cancelled a planned skiing holiday after being urged by a friend, Martin Blake, to go to Prague to see the dire situation for himself. The area had become overwhelmed with refugees after Germany had annexed the Sudetenland, a mostly German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia. Winton travelled to Czechoslovakia where he was sent by Doreen Warriner to see several refugee camps. Blake and Warriner were both working with an organisation to help relocate the adults, and Winton quickly realised that something had to be done to rescue the children who were caught up in the situation. He simply could not stand by.

On Kristallnacht (9 and 10 November 1938), the Nazis had initiated a campaign of hatred against the Jewish population in all Nazi territories. An estimated 91 Jews were killed, 30,000 were arrested, and 267 synagogues were destroyed. Following this, the British government relaxed its immigration laws and agreed to allow in a limited number of children from Germany and Austria. This programme was known as the Kindertransport, and some 10,000 children were successfully brought to Britain. Winton asked the British government to allow some Czech children to come into the UK as well; permission was granted on the condition that each child was matched to a host family who would care for the children until they were 18, and each child had to have a guarantee of £50 paid by their family.

Winton, alongside a few volunteers – including his mother – worked tirelessly to arrange everything the children needed, including finding host families and raising funds to cover the travel expenses of the children.

Winton was able to arrange for 669 children to come to the UK over the next few months, the majority of whom were Jewish. The last train of children was scheduled to leave on 1 September 1939. It was cancelled because war broke out; Winton believed that ‘none of the 250 children on board was heard of again’, which was an awful feeling for him.

Although many of the children hoped to be reunited with their parents and families after the war, the majority of them discovered that their parents had been murdered in the Holocaust. It was Winton’s actions, and those of his colleagues, including Trevor Chadwick and Doreen Warriner, who compiled lists of the children and travelled with them on the trains, that prevented them from meeting the same fate.

During the war, Nicholas Winton became an ambulance driver, before joining the RAF. After the war Winton joined the International Bank in Paris where he met his wife, Grete. They had three children, one of whom sadly died the day before his seventh birthday. After he retired, Winton spent much of his time doing voluntary work, having been president of the Maidenhead branch of Mencap for over 40 years and co-founder and president of the Abbeyfield Maidenhead Society.

Winton did not hide what he had done in 1939 but it was not well-known publicly because Winton did not think he had done anything extraordinary. Years later, Winton was trying to donate his papers, identifying the children, and matching them up to families, to an archive or museum. Shortly afterwards, Winton was invited to appear on That’s Life!, a television show where, to his surprise, he was reunited with some of the children he had helped, including Vera Schaufeld. For most of the children, it was the first time they found out who had rescued them, and felt it was a real honour and privilege to come face to face with their rescuer.

Winton was subsequently awarded many honours, including a knighthood, the Freedom of the Cities of both Prague and London, and the Order of the White Lion, the Czech Republic’s highest honour.

Winton acknowledged the vital roles in Prague of Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick, Nicholas Stopford, Beatrice Wellington, Josephine Pike and Bill Barazetti (1914–2000), who also worked to evacuate children from Europe. Winton was in Prague for only about three weeks before the Nazis occupied the country. He never set foot in the Prague main railway station, 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"

Sir Nicholas Winton was an inspiration to many people, all around the world. He humbly insisted that anyone would have done the same. But they didn’t. Most people stood by.

Wintons Memorial statue at Prague’s station.

A statue of Winton stands on Platform 1 of the Praha hlavní nádraží railway station.Created by Flor Kent, it was unveiled on 1 September 2009 as part of a larger commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the last Kindertransport train (see also Winton train, below).

There are also three memorials at Liverpool Street station in London, where the Kindertransport children arrived. In September 2010, another statue of Winton was unveiled, this time at Maidenhead railway station by Home Secretary Theresa May, MP for Maidenhead. Created by Lydia Karpinska, it depicts Winton sitting on a bench and reading a book.

Winton was not declared a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel due to the Yad Vashem policy, which states that only non Jews who risked their lives in order to save Jews are to be declared Righteous Among the Nations . As an adult, he was not active in any particular religion. In a 2015 interview, Winton said he had become disillusioned with religion during the war as he could not reconcile religious movements "praying for victory on both sides of the same war". Winton went on to describe his personal beliefs: "I believe in ethics, and if everybody believed in ethics we'd have no problems at all. That's the only way out; forget the religious side."

Winton Train

On 1 September 2009, a special "Winton Train" composed of one or two steam locomotives (out of a set of six) and carriages used in the 1930s set off from the Prague Main railway station for London via the original Kindertransport route. On board were several surviving "Winton children" and their descendants, who were welcomed by Winton in London.[92]

The occasion marked the 70th anniversary of the final intended Kindertransport arranged by Winton, due to set off on 1 September 1939 but prevented by the outbreak of the Second World War that very day. At the train's departure, a memorial statue for Winton, designed by Flor Kent, was unveiled at the railway station.

Nicholas Winton’s statue at Maidenhead station

The headboard worn by No. 60163 Tornado from Harwich to Liverpool Street station, the final leg of the Winton Train from Prague

Order of the White Lion

On 19 May 2014, Winton's 105th birthday, it was announced he was to receive the Czech Republic's highest honour, for giving Czech children "the greatest possible gift: the chance to live and to be free". On 28 October 2014, Winton was awarded the Order of the White Lion (Class I) by Czech President Miloš Zeman, the Czech Defence Ministry having sent a special aircraft to bring him to Prague. The award was made alongside one to Sir Winston Churchill, which was accepted by his grandson Nicholas Soames. Zeman said he regretted the highest Czech award having been awarded to the two personalities so belatedly, but added "better late than never". Winton was also able to meet some of the people he rescued 75 years earlier, themselves then in their 80s. He said, "I want to thank you all for this enormous expression of thanks for something which happened to me nearly 100 years ago— and 100 years is a heck of a long time. I am delighted that so many of the children are still about and are here to thank me.

Sir Nicholas Winton receiving the order of the white Lion for the Czech president. 2014

Thank you to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for helping with this page.