Survivors gather to pay tribute to 'British Schindler'
Nicholas Winton rescued 669 children from the Nazis. Yesterday 22 of them returned to Prague to thank him
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Joseph Ginat, one of the 669 mainly Jewish children saved from the Nazi death camps by Sir Nicholas Winton, is lost in thought as he catches the Winton train in Prague yesterday
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Watching a steam train full of waving passengers pull out of Prague station yesterday, the Meisl brothers recalled the wartime journey that had changed their lives forever.
Peter Meisl was evacuated from Czechoslovakia by a British stockbroker, Nicholas Winton, on the eve of the Second World War along with 668 other children, 22 of whom were on board the commemorative train yesterday as it left Prague in a cloud of steam to begin its four-day trip to London.
Czechoslovakia's Nazi occupiers declared Peter's brother Jiri too old for evacuation and, as Peter lived out the war quietly in Wales, Jiri and their parents were forced on to a prison train and sent to Auschwitz. Their father, like the relatives of scores of "Winton's Children", perished there.
The Meisls' story is just one of dozens of extraordinary tales from the now elderly men and women who owe their lives to Winton. As the former evacuees gathered in Prague for their train journey, they hailed his compassion and determination, celebrated their survival and mourned for those children that were not able to escape.
In December 1938, 29-year-old Winton was packing for a skiing holiday in Switzerland when his would-be holiday companion told him to come urgently to Czechoslovakia instead. Adolf Hitler's forces had occupied the country's Sudetenland, and Winton was appalled to see the conditions in which the refugees were living. In other parts of central Europe, "kindertransporten" were already evacuating children, but Czechoslovakia had no such programme.
Winton immediately started raising money and organising trains to save the children, and on his return to Britain began finding homes and organising visas for them, all while holding down his day job in London. Word of Winton's audacious plan quickly spread throughout Prague. When he returned to the Czech capital and set up office in his hotel room on Wenceslas Square, long queues soon formed outside of parents who would plead with him to take their children to Britain.
"Those parents were desperate – it was heartbreaking to listen to their stories," Winton, now Sir Nicholas Winton, recalled in a 2007 interview. "They knew all too well what their fate was likely to be. Their first thought was for the little ones. Never themselves. Practically all those parents perished in the camps."
Between March and August 1939, eight Winton trains carried 669 children – most of them Jewish – to safety in Britain. Seventy years on, as the steam train whistled its impending departure, they recalled parents telling them that they were just going on a short holiday, the excitement of the older children and the bewilderment of the younger ones. They remembered their strange first impressions of Britain, spitting out a first sip of milky tea and their wonder at white sliced bread.
"Our parents put a brave face on things, and of course they didn't know that they wouldn't see their children again," said Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, who was sent to a family in Lancashire and still lives in Preston. "It is very unreal and very emotional to be here today. It's like a film set," she said, as Czech government ministers prepared to unveil a statue to Sir Nicholas.
The former evacuees also remembered how a ninth train had been due to leave Prague on 1 September 1939 and how, after war broke out, the Nazis stopped it leaving the city. Most of the 250 children on board were never seen again. "My brother was supposed to be on that train. He and my parents were all killed," said Eve Leadbeater, who lives in Nottingham, where she was taken in by a teacher at the age of eight. "Being in Prague again brings a whole mix of emotions: sadness at what happened and joy at being alive. What Nicholas Winton did was a great example of what one man with compassion and determination can do."
The scale of Sir Nicholas's achievements is almost matched by his reticence to discuss them. "I was never really in danger," he has said. "I simply saw a need and I filled it. I wasn't anyone special. I just saw what was going on and did what I could to help."
He did not even tell his wife about his exploits until the late 1980s, when she found a scrapbook of clippings in the attic of their home in Maidenhead. The scrapbook was passed to a Jewish historian and, before long, he was being introduced to some of the people he had saved, on Esther Rantzen's That's Life.
Having previously been awarded only the Freedom of Maidenhead, Winton was now described as "Britain's Oscar Schindler" and the "Pied Piper of Prague" and he was knighted in 2003. Four years later, the Czech Republic gave him its highest honour and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
After unveiling a statue of Winton with two children at Prague station, Barbara Winton said that her father was still an uncompromising man of action – even at 100 years old. "What he did 70 years ago is totally in keeping with how he is now. He believes that, if something needs to be done, you must do it. Looking back doesn't get people anywhere. But if this event makes people more aware of what we should be doing now, then he will see it as a good thing."
Sir Nicholas intends to be at Liverpool Street Station in London on Saturday, when the train arrives from Prague. "What will I say when I see Nicholas?" said Eve Leadbeater as she boarded the train. "I will say 'thank you'. What else is there to say?"
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Comments
That is all there is to say really......
I was overwhelmed by the last paragraph
"Sir Nicholas intends to be at Liverpool Street Station in London on Saturday, when the train arrives from Prague. "What will I say when I see Nicholas?" said Eve Leadbeater as she boarded the train. "I will say 'thank you'. What else is there to say?"
I wish Sir Nicholas all the best on the day, meeting some of the children he saved..It is quite incredible that after all these years such a reunion can take place..
We have a "Holocaust Day" to commemorate Jews, who perished in Concentration Camps--yet the offspring of these unfortunate victims, mete out similar atrocities to Palestinians and Arabs who have the temerity to stay in Jerusalem where they have lived for generations. Shall we also have a "Gaza Day" to commemorate the victims of the 22 day massacre of women and children of Gaza.
Leading Jews are becoming obsessive, that all gentiles should be, not only reminded of those atrocities, but believe the war was against Jewry. We must be careful that, they keep history in the right context and proportions--otherwise we will have "six million Jews killed in Auschwitz alone".
The Russians under the Stalin suffered millions more, destroyed and persecuted in systematic purges-- and again millions more at the hands of the Wehrmacht.
So let's have some perspective about WW2--it killed millions of innocent people who were not Jewish--or hated the Jews.
Your contribution is perfectly odious. Your hatred of Jewish people burns through your every sentence. You appear to be one step away from Holocaust denial.
No where in the article, and nor has it ever been suggested anywhere that WWII boils down "to the single idea of the persecution of the Jews". But they were specifically by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis (or hadn't you heard?), and their elimination was a central plank of Nazi policy.
You've neatly besmirched an otherwise great story. Proud of yourself?
I wonder how many good things you have done in your life, how many times you have helped the weak and persecuted. Perhaps you have done many, and resent that you have not received sufficient acknowledgment. Or perhaps you have spent your time sitting at your computer or in your pub denouncing people you don't like.
I also wonder how much affection and respect you receive from Mrs. Rhino and the little Rhinoceri. Do they and your friends say, "You really know how to put those Jews in their place!" as they smile, give you hugs, kisses, birthday presents, whatever.
Your comment that some recognition should be given to the people killed in WW2 who hated Jews is interesting. You are right that we should appreciate the sacrifice of those who died so England could be free, whatever their opinions. But I wonder--was one of these your father? Do you feel you are honouring him by perpetuating his opinions? If so, you sound old enough to start having some of your own, based on something a bit more substantive than sulking and resentment. When you are learning some facts on which to base your opinions, you might try reading a bit more carefully than you have read this article. You ask how old Sir Nicholas is--the article states he is 100.
The last thing I wonder is how you see yourself when you are 100--or 90 or 80. Do you imagine yourself alone in a dirty, smelly flat with no one to cook for you or keep you company? Do you think this the likely outcome for someone of your opinions and temperament? If so, it is not surprising that you are pre-emptively resentful of Sir Nicholas's very different situation. Or perhaps you are already elderly and in this state?
I think that people reading your post are more likely to react with "Dear, dear, how sad" than with "My goodness, what a bold and intelligent viewpoint!" You may like to consider this the next time you think of giving your opinions to the world.
Are you suggesting that his story is somehow less heroic because he only saved Jewish children? would it have been greater if he's saved gypsies or homosexuals or any of the other groups of people persecuted and killed by the Nazi's? Perhaps if he'd saved Polish people from internment?
As someone who is engaged to a Palestinian (one of the displaced at that), I do understand your feeling and anger that all the focus seems to be on saving jews when other have suffered so much, but this article is not about that. It's about a man saving over 600 children's lives. Their religion is unimportant.
Your post is sadly nothing more than a rant of hatred and frustration that other people's suffering are ignored when it should have been a celebration of what the best of humanity can achieve in the face of evil.
As I have said, millions more innocent gentiles died in that war and there are far greater herioc feats than that chosen for our sentimentality.
We have had "Holocaust Day" imposed upon us--this is where the story belongs. So why has it taken so long?.
Perhaps we can share the "Holocaust Day" with a Gaza Memorial--or a memorial to those Palestinians, who were killed and driven out by Jews in the Nakbah and combine it with the Gaza Massacre--there were children there, who nobody could save because the IDF would not allow it.
When the majority of leading Jews condemn Israel for atrocities it has been--and still is commiting--and do something about it, I'll believe these stories were brought to us to instruct us on how to behave in war--I don't believe that will happen. Otherwise Jewish PR.
Like many world leaders,Begin began as a "terrorist" but was far too canny a politician to ever utter anything so stupid.
the quote was invented by reverend texe mars of the power of prophecy ministries church.
what the israeli government is doing in palestine is criminal.
what was done to the jews in WW2 was beyond criminal.
this winton guy did good in saving 600 kids.
think of all the beautiful things those murdered 6,000,000 jews could have contributed to europe and the world.what a different place it would be now. how many einsteins or yitzhak perlmans or sarah silvermans were slaughtered ?
jews are often envied and feared because they work and study hard and largely keep to themselves -they excel at science,medicine,art,finance,literature.
http://begincenterdiary.blogspot.com/20
jews, and israelis in particular have done and said some terrible things -this was not one of them.
of Jews in the Holocaust. God bless Sir Nicholas and the children he saved. May their story remind us that sometimes people are at their best when things are at their worst. And God bless Britain from your friend in the States!
People in this world should look at the bigger picture and not at what they see because when they do get the bigger picture its too late. Too many angry people for no reason HE DID THE GREATEST THING OF THEM ALL, HE GAVE LIFE.