Nicholas Winton, rescuer of children during the Holocaust, dies at 106 - The Washington Post
That was the question that Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old English stockbroker, asked when he found himself in Prague in 1938. As war loomed in Europe, humanitarian groups had initiated efforts to aid Jews, political refugees and other groups endangered by Hitler’s advancing threat. But Mr. Winton found no such effort underway specifically for the children of Czechoslovakia.
In Czechoslovakia, he had the foresight to photograph the children looking for homes. To prospective host families, those haunting images proved more compelling than a list of names.
“It was a nasty, commercial way of doing things,” Mr. Winton told an interviewer years later, “but it was effective.”
In the late 1980s, Mr. Winton’s wife, the former Grete Gjelstrup, was rooting through the attic when she came upon a scrapbook containing documents related to the wartime rescue effort. He had never mentioned it to her.
“I suppose there are quite a number of things that husbands don’t tell their wives,” Mr. Winton told Matej Minac, who directed several films about the story, including “All My Loved Ones” (1999), “The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton” (2002) and “Nicky’s Family” (2011).
The scrapbook made its way to Elisabeth Maxwell , the Holocaust scholar and wife of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Soon, Mr. Winton found himself featured in British newspapers and on the BBC television program “That’s Life!”
“May I ask, is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton?” the host, Esther Rantzen, inquired. “If so, could you stand up, please?”
Four of Mr. Winton’s “children” grew up to become Karel Reisz, the director of films including “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981); Alfred Dubs, a prominent Labor Party politician in Britain; Joe Schlesinger, a noted Canadian journalist; and Dagmar Simova, a cousin of former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
That was the question that Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old English stockbroker, asked when he found himself in Prague in 1938. As war loomed in Europe, humanitarian groups had initiated efforts to aid Jews, political refugees and other groups endangered by Hitler’s advancing threat. But Mr. Winton found no such effort underway specifically for the children of Czechoslovakia.
In Czechoslovakia, he had the foresight to photograph the children looking for homes. To prospective host families, those haunting images proved more compelling than a list of names.
“It was a nasty, commercial way of doing things,” Mr. Winton told an interviewer years later, “but it was effective.”
In the late 1980s, Mr. Winton’s wife, the former Grete Gjelstrup, was rooting through the attic when she came upon a scrapbook containing documents related to the wartime rescue effort. He had never mentioned it to her.
“I suppose there are quite a number of things that husbands don’t tell their wives,” Mr. Winton told Matej Minac, who directed several films about the story, including “All My Loved Ones” (1999), “The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton” (2002) and “Nicky’s Family” (2011).
The scrapbook made its way to Elisabeth Maxwell , the Holocaust scholar and wife of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Soon, Mr. Winton found himself featured in British newspapers and on the BBC television program “That’s Life!”
“May I ask, is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton?” the host, Esther Rantzen, inquired. “If so, could you stand up, please?”
Four of Mr. Winton’s “children” grew up to become Karel Reisz, the director of films including “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981); Alfred Dubs, a prominent Labor Party politician in Britain; Joe Schlesinger, a noted Canadian journalist; and Dagmar Simova, a cousin of former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
