Prague names street after British Holocaust hero


A large mural of Nicholas Winton can be seen from the Prague street named after the Brit who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis

A new street in Prague has been named after Sir Nicholas Winton, the British man who helped save hundreds of mostly Jewish children from the Nazis.

Four of them – now in their 80s and 90s – attended the ceremony for the street, which runs past a small train station from where tens of thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were deported during the Holocaust.

It coincided with the 85th anniversary of the last planned Kindertransport journey from Prague, which was prevented from departing due to the outbreak of World War Two.

“This was my passport to freedom,” said Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, clutching a document the size of a birthday card.

The card, slightly yellowed with age, showed that Milena Fleischmann (her maiden name), aged nine, was granted leave by His Majesty’s Government to enter the United Kingdom.

A photo of a cheerful girl wearing a smart, white-collared shirt was stuck to the front. The reverse was stamped with a swastika.

Clutching this document, and with a name tag hung around her neck, Milena travelled by train across Nazi Germany, watching over her three-year-old sister, Eva.

From there, they and dozens of other unaccompanied Jewish children crossed into Holland, before boarding a boat for England.

“We were all given cups of tea with milk. Nobody had ever had tea with milk. We all poured it out,” she said.

Eventually Milena and Eva were reunited with their parents, who also managed to escape. The Fleischmanns were the lucky ones. Many of their friends and relatives were not.

“I think it’s so important, because very soon, no eyewitnesses will be here anymore,” Milena, a youthful 94, told the BBC.

She spoke sitting on a chair on the same railway platform where tens of thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were herded onto trains bound for the Theresienstadt ghetto. Most would later be murdered at Auschwitz.

The station – Praha Bubny – has since been transformed into a memorial, and a much larger, modern station is being built nearby. A path for pedestrians and cyclists running beneath the tracks will from now on be known as Nicholas Winton Street.

“People need to remember why that street is called Nicholas Winton Street,” Milena went on. “Because there is a big generation – thanks to him – alive today.”

She and three other ‘children’ were brought to Prague to attend the ceremony organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR).

“In remembering Sir Nicholas, we also honour the parents who sent away their children to an uncertain future, as well as the foster families who gave sanctuary to the youngest victims of Nazi oppression,” said Michael Newman, head of the AJR.

“In today's world, it's really important that people don't wait for someone else to initiate an act of goodness, but that they themselves start doing it,” Jan Cizinsky, mayor of Prague’s seventh district, told the BBC.

“It's important that they take the first step, and then others will follow."

Milena didn’t find out that the card – and therefore her survival – was largely the work of a 29-year-old British stockbroker until the 1980s, when the story appeared on the BBC programme That’s Life.

In now legendary footage, a speechless Winton was reunited with dozens of the then children he had helped to save in the final months before the outbreak of war.

In subsequent interviews he was always at pains to stress the operation was a team effort.

Apart from a month spent in Prague from Christmas 1938 to January 1939, most of the work – badgering politicians and diplomats, finding foster families, sometimes creating fake documents - was done from the safety of his home in London.

He was knighted in 2003 and died in 2015 at the age of 106.  Most of all, he remained haunted by the children he was unable to save.

Milena’s train was the eighth – and final – transport to leave occupied Prague.

A ninth – the largest, carrying some 250 children – was scheduled to leave on September 1st, 1939. But war intervened, and the train never left the station. All but a handful of the children are believed to have perished.

Today is the 85th anniversary of the arrival of the first Kindertransport in London, so here you go…

They began arriving on a cold day in December of 1938. Eventually almost 10,000 would arrive at the Liverpool Street Station in London. These were the kids of the Kindertransport, little Jewish kids put on trains in Germany by their devastated parents in a desperate effort to save their lives.

Sir Nicholas Winton's treasures to be auctioned


Sir Nicholas Winton is regarded as a hero for saving the lives of hundreds of children

Treasures of Kindertransport hero Sir Nicholas Winton, including a 105th birthday message from the Queen, are to be sold at auction.

Sir Nicholas, who died last year aged 106, brought Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to safety in the UK.

In 1939 Sir Nicholas organised the rescue of 669 Jewish children destined for Nazi concentration camps, arranging for trains to carry them out of German-occupied Prague.

Nicholas Winton memorial service honours Holocaust hero

A memorial service has been held for Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued hundreds of children from the Holocaust in the months before World War Two.

Some 28 of those he saved as children were among 400 people who attended the event at London's Guildhall, along with Czech, Slovak and UK government representatives.

Sir Nicholas organised the "Kindertransport" in which 669 mostly Jewish children came to Britain by train from Czechoslovakia in 1939.

He died on 1 July last year, aged 106.

The Kindertransport became public knowledge on BBC TV show That's Life in 1988 when presenter Esther Rantzen reunited some of those saved with the person who helped them escape the Nazis.

Many of the children went on to have their own families and the number currently alive as a result of the Kindertransport is believed to be about 7,000.

Sir Nicholas was born Nicholas Wertheimer in 1909 to Jewish parents
By 1938 he was a young stockbroker in London
He dropped everything to go to Prague to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi occupation
Sir Nicholas organised foster families for Jewish children in Britain, placing adverts in newspapers
The 669 children travelled on eight trains across four countries
Sir Nicholas's team persuaded British custom officials to allow all the children in despite incomplete documentation

British holocaust hero Nicholas Winton stamp campaign


Sir Nicholas Winton is credited with rescuing 669 Czech children from the Nazis

Thousands of people have backed a campaign for a hero who saved hundreds of children during the Holocaust to be immortalised on a stamp.

The petition calls for the honour to be given to the late Nicholas Winton, who died last month aged 106 and was known as "Britain's Schindler".

Royal Mail said Sir Nicholas, from Berkshire, was "definitely among the subjects for future consideration".

The campaign has been organised by Jewish News. Backers include Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and MPs including Conservative ex-minister Eric Pickles and Labour MP Gisela Stuart.

Rabbi Mirvis said: "We frequently quote that famous truism 'all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing', yet we are rarely blessed to come across an individual who so emphatically triumphed over evil with such dignity and character."

Jewish News editor Justin Cohen said: "We hoped to get many thousands supporting us but it has gone well beyond our readership and well beyond the UK as well."

Sir Nicholas, who lived near Maidenhead, told no one about his pre-war efforts for half a century. He was reunited with some of the children on Esther Rantzen's That's Life TV programme in 1988, after his wife Grete found an old briefcase in the attic with lists of children and letters from their parents.

There is a statue of Sir Nicholas at Maidenhead station and he was knighted by the Queen in 2003.

The petition has now attracted more than 67,000 signatures.

A Royal Mail spokeswoman said: "Every year we consider hundreds of subjects for inclusion in the stamp programme. While we do not currently have plans to feature Sir Nicholas on a stamp, he is definitely among the subjects for future consideration."

A statue has been unveiled to honour the man dubbed the "British Schindler" for his work saving Jewish children from Nazi invasion.

Sir Nicholas Winton was 29 when he smuggled 669 boys and girls, destined for concentration camps, out of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

The 101-year-old attended the service earlier at Maidenhead railway station in front of a crowd of onlookers.

The piece, forming part of a bench, is on the station's platform three. It was unveiled by Maidenhead MP Theresa May.

Sir Nicholas, of Pinkneys Green, was joined by members of the Maidenhead Rotary Club, where he is also a member.

A motion was unanimously passed to install the ^20,000 statue, created by local sculptor Lydia Karpinska, by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council last year.

It depicts Sir Nicholas relaxing on a park bench, reading a book which contains images of the children he saved and the trains used to evacuate them.

Councillor Derek Wilson, who put forward the motion, called Sir Nicholas "a true hero". He added: "He played a valuable contribution in evacuating these children at a time when it was extremely difficult. We should never forget the contribution of the members of our community that put their own lives at risk. He is extremely modest but I felt it was important that in Maidenhead we recognised his achievements."

Sir Nicholas kept quiet about his work for 50 years until his wife found a scrapbook.

Realising the danger that the imminent Nazi invasion posed, he worked to find British families willing to put up ^50 to rescue the children and look after them until they were 17.

His efforts have been likened to the work of the world famous "saviour" of Jewish prisoners Oskar Schindler.

Sir Nicholas was knighted by the Queen in March 2003 and a year earlier was finally reunited with hundreds of the children he saved - including Labour peer Lord Dubbs and film director Karel Reisz.