Sunday, June 7, 2015

Ordinary Heroes: Nicholas Winton


A successful stockbroker, sports enthusiast, Nicholas Winton was living the high life in the 1930s. But he became concerned over what he was reading in the newspaper about Hitler. So, at 29 years of age or so, he went to Prague, Czechoslovakia to see if he maybe he could to save some people

At 104 years of age, when asked what made him think that HE could do it, Winton said, "I work on the motto if something is not impossible there must a way of doing it."

When he got back home to Britain, he went about creating something that could get people, especially the children, out of Prague. His first step in starting this rescue mission involved "borrowing" the stationary of a pre-existing group in the U.K. called "British Commitee for Refugees From  Czechoslovakia" ...then adding the subheader "CHILDREN'S SECTION"

He got to work saving children through the network he created. And when the real organization found out what he was doing, they adopted him.

Jewish parents heard of his rescue effort through the grapevine -more and more Jewish people, sensing that war was in the air, hearing that the Nazi's were coming- and they begged his organization to get their children out.And he did it. He did it 669 times

Winton had managed to get 669 children out.

Many of the children he saved didn't know of his existence or who he was until 50 years later, in the 1980s.  This 2 minute video of him getting a bit of a surprise.






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