Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE (born Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue 669 children, most of them Jewish, who were at risk of being murdered by Nazi Germany.

On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia, he helped compile a list of children needing rescue and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfill the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them. This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children's transport").

His humanitarian accomplishments went unnoticed by the world for nearly 50 years until 1988 when he was invited to a BBC television program, where he was reunited with dozens of the children he had saved and was introduced to many of their children and grandchildren.

In 2003, Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to humanity, in saving Jewish Children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia". On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion (1st class), by Czech President Miloš Zeman. Winton died on 1 July 2015, at the age of 106.

In the wake of antisemitic violence brought on by the Nazi regime in Germany in November 1938, the British government allowed unaccompanied minors under the age of 17 from the German Reich (including recently annexed territories) to enter Great Britain as refugees. Jewish organizations inside the Greater German Reich planned the transports to Great Britain. Child welfare organizations in Great Britain arranged for the children’s care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain.

Informally known as the Kindertransport, or "children's transport", this series of rescue efforts from December 1938 until May 1940 brought about 10,000 children to safety in Great Britain. Within that group of children would be future architects, mathematicians, poets, geneticists, filmmakers, and journalists. Had those refugee children, the vast majority of them Jewish, been left to fend for themselves within the German Reich, most if not all of them would have surely perished from this Earth.

Also within that group of about 10,000 children to safety arrive in Great Britain were 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia, which is known today as the Czech Republic. This daring rescue effort was organized and assisted by a man named Nicholas George Winton, with the help unsung heroes like Trevor Chadwick, Beatrice Wellington and other critical volunteers both in Prague and London. While there have been some scholars who have attempted to diminish Winton's role in the rescue effort, mainly because he himself was never in physical danger, we here at Hidden History strongly disagree with those scholars.

Witnessing the devastating effect of the Great Depression on British workers and their families in the early 1930s led Winton to politics. He joined the British political party, the Labour Party, and was friendly with influential centre-left Members of Parliament. His connection with them continued through the 1940s. And it was this connection that Winton had with influential government officials that led to the acceptance of his application for the entry of the children from Czechoslovakia. After listening to this episode, you can decide if Nicholas George Winton's life story is worthy of recognition, a due recognition he didn't receive for nearly 50 years until 1988.

Nicholas' story, hidden history that has remained long forgotten, is the story of a young British stockbroker determined to save the lives of as many innocent children as he could & how those rescue efforts remained virtually unknown until the facts were uncovered many decades later.

For the rest of Nicholas' story, please check out the audio link provided for EPISODE TWELVE of our podcast, Hidden History: An Odyssey Through Time

LISTEN NOW: A Hero of the Holocaust: The Life of Sir Nicholas George Winton:

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Images and Documents

Nicholas (also known as Nicky), Lottie, and Bobby at home in the garden circa 1917.

Wertheim family: pictured in the garden of their home at 5 Cleve Road, West Hampstead circa 1920. Left to right: Rudolf, Bobby, Grossmama, Lottie, Barbara, and Nicky.

Stowe Fencing Team, Christmas Term 1926. Nicky seated end right. Nicky started fencing at Stowe when it was offered as an alternative sport to cricket. He was not a fan of cricket but enjoyed fencing and quickly became talented at it.

Nicky’s fencing kit two épées and mask. These were part of Nicky’s fencing kit, in use from the mid 1920s until the early 1950s.

School diary entries from February & June 1925, 2nd year at Stowe. These detailed mostly sporting activities & hobbies. Nicholas also listed the many books he read & letters he received from family and friends.

Winners of Foil competition at Hamburger Fecht Klub, Oct 1929 – Nicky on the right, came 2nd. Competition medal inset.

Nicholas Winton, 1938, age 29.

Copy of Nicholas' letter to his mother dated 1st January 1939 giving his first impressions on arriving in Prague. The letter discusses his early thoughts on the conditions for refugees in Prague and the heart-breaking difficulties they faced. The original letter is in the scrapbook which he was given by a fellow volunteer after the Kindertransport project came to an end, containing many details of the work done, including the list of children brought to the UK. The scrapbook was donated by Nicholas to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1989.

Copy of two telegrams in the scrapbook, dated 2nd March and 12th March 1939. The first is from Doreen Warriner and Trevor Chadwick, the second from Chadwick alone to Nicholas. The first may be after Nicholas obtained permission from the UK Home Office to bring in unaccompanied children or getting the first set of visas accepted. The second is regarding the first transport, postponed for two days, which eventually left on 14th March, the day before the Germans occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia.

Brass badge, "Czech Children Committee", that belonged to Nicholas.

Copy of Report B Transports from the scrapbook, dated October 2, 1939. This details the transports and number of children on each, plus the finances involved.

Barbara Winton, Nicky’s mother, at work in the Kindertransport office.

Photo of Red Cross ambulance crew, with Nicholas in the center.

Photo of Nicholas & pilot friend during his time in the Royal Air Force from 1942 to 1946. As he wore glasses, he was not considered suitable as a pilot but was accepted as a Pilot Trainer.

Letter from Nicholas to his mother from Brussels, November 17, 1944, during the RAF exhibition. etter was the Black Market in goods in the city and how people were managing to survive. His main pre-occupation in this letter was the Black Market in goods in the city and how people were managing to survive. Further letters show level of destruction still affecting the Belgian and German people.

Nicholas explaining an exhibit in the RAF exhibition.

On board a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, December 1947 – Nicholas is to the far right, centre with glasses. He was witnessing the disposal of "worthless" items into the sea. Nicholas was transporting a large number of crates of valuable items stolen by the Nazis from their victims for sale by auction in New York. Items considered of no monetary value had nevertheless to be disposed of without entering the German economy. Nicholas' practical but heartbreaking solution was to break open these crates and drop them overboard at sea.

Left to right Grete, Nicholas, Kirsten - Grete’s sister. This photo was taken after Nicholas married Grete in Vejle, Denmark in 1948. Between 1952 and 1956, Nicholas and his wife would have three children: Nicholas, Jr., Barbara and Robin. 

Nicholas and Grete in Key West, Florida with cousin Ernest Friedman, who had lent them his car to drive from New York to Florida. After their Florida holiday, they all drove back together to New York.

Family photo taken circa 1956. From left to right: Nicholas, his sister Lottie, wife Grete, brother Bobby with his wife Heather, Grandma Barbara.  Children left to right – Barbara, Peter (Bobby & Heather’s first child), Nicholas.

Nicholas with Robin, his and Grete’s third child who had Down's Syndrome.

Sadly Robin died in 1962, the day before his 6th birthday.

First page of the three page article about Nicholas & the Kindertransport published in the Sunday Mirror on February 28, 1988, titled "The Lost Children".

Gold ring engraved with the words “Save one life, save the world”, given to Nicholas by some of the children he rescued during a Holocaust conference in June 1988. He wore the ring for the rest of his life. The words are taken from the Jewish Talmud teaching: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Nicholas at a London reception with five of "his children" & the Czech Ambassador, circa 1998, from left to right: Lord Alfred Dubs, Ambassador Pavel Seifter - Czech ambassador to the Court of St James, Nicholas Winton, Vera Gissing, Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, Karel Reisz, Ute Klein.

The Czech Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, awarded to Nicholas by President Vaclav Havel in 1998, is an honour awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to humanity, democracy and human rights.

Nicholas receiving a knighthood in March 2003 from Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Humanity.

Order of the White Double Cross awarded to Nicholas in 2003 by President Schuster of Slovakia.

The Order of the White Lion First Class awarded to Nicholas on October 28, 2014 by President Zeman of the Czech Republic.

Letter to Nicholas from President George W. Bush, thanking him for what he did to rescue the children in 1939.

Two Slovak steam trains from 1936, Green Anton and Albatross pulling the Winton Train for the first part of the journey through the Czech Republic in 2009.

Nicholas greeting Susie Medas and all the Kinder and their families from the train at Liverpool Street station. 

22 of the original Kinder and their families made the journey on the Winton Train in September 2009.

Nicholas with a large group of "his children", singing "Happy Birthday" at a reception at the Czech embassy in London to celebrate his 100th birthday.

The final resting place of Sir Nicholas George Winton. Winton was cremated and his ashes were buried at Braywick Cemetery in Maidenhead, Berkshire alongside his wife Grete and son Robin.

A statue of Sir Nicholas and two Kindertransport children on Platform 1 at the main railway station, Prague (Praha hlavní nádraží) created by sculptor Flor Kent. This was the station where the Czechoslovak Kindertransports left for Britain in 1939. At that time it was known as Wilson Station.

Statue commemorating Sir Nicholas at Maidenhead train station in England.

On May 19, 2020, Google honored Winton's legacy on the 111th anniversary of his birth with a Google Doodle.

Reading Material

Children were especially vulnerable to Nazi persecution. Some were targeted on supposed racial grounds, such as Jewish youngsters. Others were targeted for biological reasons, such as patients with physical or mental disabilities, or because of their alleged resistance or political activities. As many as 1.5 million Jewish children alone were murdered or died at the hands of Nazi officials or their collaborators.

Learn more by clicking the link below:

Kindertransport (Children's Transport) was the informal name of a series of rescue efforts between 1938 and 1940. These rescue efforts brought thousands of refugee children, the vast majority of them Jewish, to Great Britain from Nazi Germany.

Learn more by clicking the link below:

Featured Videos

In February 1988, Nicholas was invited to attend the live filming of "That’s Life!", a popular British television show. At one point, Winton's scrapbook was shown and his achievements were explained. The host of the programme, Esther Rantzen, told the Kindertransport story and pointed out parts of the scrapbook including the list of children and foster homes they went to. Esther then asked whether anybody in the audience were among the children who owed their lives to Winton, and if so, to stand. The video below is what happened next:

An interview given by Nicholas Winton in 2014 for BBC HARDtalk:

Resources

A major source used to make this episode about Nicholas Winton was: www.nicholaswinton.com. About 99% of the information, photos, and documents pertaining to Winton's life were gathered from the aforementioned website and so we here at Hidden History would like to thank Barbara Winton & the entire Winton family for making this episode possible. Additional sources used are listed below:

• Winton, Barbara. If It's Not Impossible...: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton. (Troubador Publishing, 2014.)

• https://www.hmd.org.uk/

• https://www.ushmm.org/
• https://www.familysearch.org/