I am reblogging this post to honour Sir Nicholas Winton who has died at the age of 106. As a tribute, a steam locomotive – Tornado – stopped at Maidenhead on Wednesday night alongside the statue of Sir Nicholas. (BBC News)
Sir Nicholas Winton was just 29 when he saved 669 children, most of them Jews, from the Nazis in occupied Czechoslovakia, in an extraordinary act of kindness and bravery that saw him nicknamed ‘The British Schindler’.
The story of Sir Nicholas’ remarkable rescue began shortly before Christmas 1938 when the former stockbroker from Hampstead, who was planning a holiday to Switzerland at the time, heard of the plight of child refugees in besieged Czechoslovakia.
Cancelling his holiday, he visited a friend in Prague to see the situation for himself.
While there he single-handedly masterminded the transportation of children from the Nazi-occupied country to Britain, saving them from the concentration camps, and in many cases certain death.
During 1939 he organised eight evacuations of the children on the Czech ‘Kindertransport’ train. He arranged foster homes, acquired the necessary travel permits for the children and persuaded…
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