Children of Winton

669 Jewish children were kidnapped from Czechoslovakia and for nearly half a century, no one knew about this story.

Grete Gjelstrup finds some notebooks in the attic room of her house. The notebooks are full of pages with hundreds of names written on them. When she looks through them a little more, this time they reveal pictures, letters and numerous travel documents. First, you have to blow the dust off the documents to be able to read the writings on them. The Danish woman realizes that all these belong to her husband, whom she married in 1948. She asks her husband for an explanation for these documents, which the man she was married to has never mentioned for 40 years. Nicholas Winton rambles on. He tries to dismiss the subject by saying that after all these years, the documents have no importance. But his wife won't let him.

Grete Gjelstrup takes the documents to a historian of the Nazi massacre. The letters, notebooks and photographs first become the subject of a newspaper article. Then, a programme is made on the BBC. Thus, the story of Nicholas Winton and his children comes to light.

Nicholas Winton was born in London on May 19, 1919. His family was German Jewish and had the surname Wertheim. Later, the family converted to Christianity and took the surname Winton. Since they lived in London, the family members became more English than German.

Nicholas Winton is a man who makes money by buying and selling stocks in London. While on a ski holiday in the Swiss Alps, he has to go to Prague upon receiving a sudden invitation in December 1938. The invitation came from a friend in Czechoslovakia. The Sudetenland region in the west of Czechoslovakia has been declared its own territory by Germany. Winton's friend Martin Blake needs help to save the Jewish children in the region.

Jewish shops, homes and synagogues in Germany and Austria were looted during the infamous "Kristallnacht." Fear of the Nazis was at its highest, especially in the countries to the east of Germany.

Towards the end of 1938, England began implementing a program called "Kindertransport". Accordingly, families were found in England for Jewish children under the age of 17 in order to save them from the increasing anti-Semitism. The children were placed with these families. When the danger was over, the government guaranteed 50 pounds in aid for the children to be sent back to their countries. Within the scope of this program, England sent representatives to Germany and Austria and saved the lives of approximately 10,000 Jewish children before the start of World War II. However, this program was not implemented for Czechoslovakia. The task fell to Nicholas Winton upon Martin Blake's invitation. The operation was initiated with the help of threats, bribes, close and secret relations with the Gestapo, bureaucratic procedures and large amounts of money.

On March 14, 1939, just hours before Hitler was to detach the Czechoslovak regions of Bohemia and Morania from Czechoslovakia and annex them to Germany, 20 children were sent by train from Prague. The children's families were devastated. They were sending their children off to England. Without knowing if they would ever see them again, and to other people they did not know.

Eight more trains were arranged and seven of them were able to complete their journey. The people on the eighth train were caught. There were 250 children on this train. The day they were caught was September 1, 1939. On the same day, Hitler invaded Poland.

With Winton's efforts, 669 children were sent to England. Following the occupation of Poland, the borders of countries under German control, including Czechoslovakia, were closed. It was no longer possible for Winton to continue his rescue efforts. It is estimated today that 250 children on the last train died in concentration camps. Most of the families of the 669 children who were rescued were killed in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt. Most of the children remained in England after the war. Some later emigrated to the USA, Austria or Israel. These children, who were around 80 years old, are called "Winton's Children".

Nobody knew about Winton's children until 1988. Thanks to Nicholas Winton's wife, everyone learned this story. Winton's children were reunited with their own children in 2009. They set off from Prague on a train from the 1930s. With heavy emotions and tears. They arrived at Liverpool Street station 70 years after their first journey from the same station. A surprise was waiting for them at the station. As the train approached the station, a human silhouette began to appear. When they got off the train, Nicholas Winton was in front of them. He had just turned 100. 70 years later, Winton hugged his children and their children. He had lost one of his three children when he was 7 years old in 1962, but he had a huge family with the children of his 669 children.

When the world became aware of Winton, US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli President Ezer Weizman wrote him letters of thanks. The Czech Republic nominated Winton for the Nobel Peace Prize. The city of Prague made Winton an honorary citizen. Several streets and schools in Prague and London were named after him. His notebooks were sent to Yad Vashem, a memorial to the Nazi massacre.

I watched the movie telling the story of Oskar Schindler in 1994. There were 1,200 people on his list. There was also Raoul Wallenberg who saved human lives with such an operation.

Nicholas Winton died on July 1, 2015, at the age of 106. Being human has no religion, language, race or color. But mankind does not learn from this pain.