Posted on December 16, 2023
Sir Nicholas Winton never liked being called a hero, but to the hundreds of children whose lives he saved there is no better word.
During the nine months leading up to the Second World War, the London stockbroker, known as Nicky, organised the rescue of 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. In a race against time before the borders closed, Sir Nicholas and a handful of volunteers arranged train travel to England, visas, funding and foster homes to save the children, who were mainly Jewish, from the Nazis.
The story of his remarkable feat is coming to the big screen in the film One Life, featuring Anthony Hopkins as the older Nicky, and Helena Bonham Carter. Sir Nicholas’s incredible efforts came to light 50 years later in an article in the Sunday Mirror, which led to his being reunited with many of the children he saved on BBC1’s That’s Life! in 1988.