Post by M. Hawbaker on Sept 9, 2019 23:37:21 GMT
LONDON — He was just a 29-year-old clerk at the London Stock Exchange when he faced the challenge of a lifetime.
Traveling with a friend to Czechoslovakia in 1938, as the drums of impending war echoed around Europe, Nicholas Winton was hit by a key realization. The country was in danger and no one was saving its Jewish children.
Traveling with a friend to Czechoslovakia in 1938, as the drums of impending war echoed around Europe, Nicholas Winton was hit by a key realization. The country was in danger and no one was saving its Jewish children.
Winton would almost single-handedly save more than 650 Jewish children from the Holocaust, earning himself the label "Britain's Schindler." He died Wednesday at age 106 in a hospital near Maidenhead, his hometown west of London, his family said. Winton arranged trains to carry children from Nazi-occupied Prague to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends and saving them from almost certain death.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said "the world has lost a great man." Jonathan Sacks, Britain's former chief rabbi, said Winton "was a giant of moral courage and determination, and he will be mourned by Jewish people around the world." In Israel, President Reuven Rivlin said Winton will be remembered as a hero from "those darkest of times. [He] was a man who valued human life above all else, and there are those who are alive today who are testament to his dedication and sacrifice," Rivlin said.
