Nicholas Winton
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Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE was a British humanitarian who organised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kinder transport. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The world found out about his work over 50 years later, in 1988. The British press dubbed him the "British Schindler".
Sir Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps, has died aged 106.
Sir Nicholas, then a stockbroker, arranged for trains to carry Jewish children out of occupied Prague.
The prime minister described him as a "great man" and the chief rabbi praised his "exceptional courage".
He died on the anniversary of the departure of a train in 1939 carrying the largest number of children - 241.
His son-in-law Stephen Watson said he died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital, Slough.
Sir Nicholas brought the children to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends, saving them from almost certain death, and then kept quiet about his exploits for a half-century.
He organised a total of eight trains from Prague, with some other forms of transport also set up from Vienna.
- Sir Nicholas was born Nicholas Wertheimer in 1909 to Jewish parents
- By 1938 he was a young stockbroker in London
- He dropped everything to go to Prague to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi occupation
- Sir Nicholas organised foster families for Jewish children in Britain, placing adverts in newspapers
- The 669 children travelled on eight trains across four countries
- Sir Nicholas's team persuaded British custom officials to allow all the children in despite incomplete documentation
