Nicholas Winton.

Nicholas Winton was born on May 19, 1909 in Hampstead, London, where he grew up and attended school before beginning a career in banking across Europe. His profession took him to Germany, France and back to England to become a broker at the London Stock Exchange in the 1930’s. As the Nazi party was gaining power, Nicholas began to fear the dangers posed by the political movement and became part of a left-wing circle consisting of friends and associates who shared his grave concerns.

In 1938, 29-year-old Nicholas travelled to Prague with one of his colleagues who was volunteering at a Czechoslovakian refugee camp. When Nicholas saw the conditions of the camps, his heart went out to the refugees, especially the children. Volunteers were working to evacuate adults, but no one was working to rescue innocent children whose parents could not afford to leave. Nicholas took action and single-handedly created an organization to aid children from Jewish families at risk from the Nazis, establishing an outpost for this work at a local hotel in Prague. He was greatly assisted by his mother back in England.

 Once word got out that an Englishman was evacuating children, families lined up outside the hotel, sometimes overnight, in the hopes that Nicholas would be able to save their children. When Nicholas opened an office in Prague, many volunteers joined the cause. They kept a record of each child, building a massive list of refugees by 1939.

In November 1938, the British House of Commons approved a measure to allow refugees younger than 17 entries into Britain and Nicholas began the process of transporting children out of Prague. But there was another hurdle Nicholas had to overcome: a £50 bond for each child entering Britain—the equivalent of $3,800 today. Nicholas reached out to his network of successful businessmen and women to help with this financial burden. The contributions that helped pay for the bonds came from both individual and organizational sponsors.

After the refugee measure passed and the bonds were paid, there was yet another obstacle. Nicholas had to find foster families willing to accept each child before they would be allowed to enter the country. After Nicholas placed advertisements with pictures of the refugee children in periodicals across the country, many families were inspired to help and took children into their homes. In addition to securing safe passage to Britain for children in danger of being sent to concentration camps, Nicholas wrote to many politicians in other nations, urging them to accept refugees.

The first group of children left Prague on March 14, 1939. They were one of eight groups to leave Czechoslovakia as part of Nicholas’s rescue effort, which has come to be known as the Kindertransport. The ninth and final group of children that Nicholas had arranged to save left Prague on September 3, 1939. Tragically, they were sent back to Prague as the Nazis had by then invaded Poland and closed all European borders. Ultimately, Nicholas succeeded in finding homes in Britain for 669 children. An estimated 6,000 descendants owe their lives to his heroic acts!

During WWII, Nicholas joined the Royal Air Force Administrative and Special Duties Branch and served as an aircraftman and pilot officer. He relinquished his post in 1954, retaining the honorary rank of flight lieutenant. After the war, Nicholas worked for the International Refugee Organization and then the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Paris.

Winton’s extraordinary efforts remained hidden until the late 1980s when his wife discovered a scrapbook in their attic containing lists of the rescued children and their parents’ contact details. The story gained widespread recognition when it was featured on a BBC television program called “That’s Life!” in 1988. As a result, Winton was reunited with some of the individuals he had saved, and his actions were rightfully acknowledged.

In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Sir Nicholas Winton for his services to humanity. Despite his many accolades, he remained humble about his role in the Kindertransport, often stating that he did what anyone would have done in the same situation.

Sir Nicholas Winton passed away on July 1, 2015, at the age of 106. His legacy lives on as a symbol of human decency and the impact that one individual, motivated by compassion and empathy, can have on the lives of many. The Winton Train Station in Prague and the Nicholas Winton Memorial Garden in Maidenhead, England, stand as enduring tributes to this exceptional man and his extraordinary deeds. His death came 76 years to the day after 241 of the children he saved left Prague on a Kinderstransport train.

Nicholas’ daughter Barbara published his biography in 2015.  The book explores the 106-year life of an incredible humanitarian, a man whose legacy only came to public light decades later. His life story is a clarion call to choose action over apathy in the face of injustice, and a reminder that every one of us can change the world.