At the teeming Liverpool Street Station in London, there are two statues that give a passerby cause for pause. Both of them tell a stirring story from Europe’s history; both are of children. Inside the busy concourse is a statue of two children, a girl and a boy, with lost expressions on their faces as they wait, their strapped suitcase beside them. The other located just outside the station, conveys a different mood. A group of children, siblings perhaps, have expectancy and hope writ large on their faces as they stand waiting –a teddy bear clutched in one little girl’s arms, and an open violin case at the feet of the boy.
LONDON-“ Is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton?” Asked the presenter of the popular BBC magazine program “ That’s Life”. Around the elderly man sitting with his wife in the front row of the audience, more than 30 people got to their feet. The man stood to acknowledge them, wiping tears from his house.
According to NYTimes, back in 1988, some 50 years since the stockbroker Nicholas Winton was in Prague as the Nazis marched on Czechoslovakia and all around him Jewish parents desperately looked for means of escape, if not for themselves at least for their young ones.
Single-handedly, Winton Saved more than 650 of those children from almost certain death in the Holocaust. But he didn’t talk about it for decades until his wife discovered documents in their attic that revealed the story and for the first time allowed the rescued children to know and thank their savior.
Winton’s death Wednesday at the age of 106 brought tributes from leaders and the Jewish groups in Britain and Czech Republic and Israel.
“ In a world plagued by evil and indifference, Winton dedicated himself to saving the innocent and the defenseless. His exceptional moral leadership serves as an example to all humanity,” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday.
Winton served in the Royal Air Force during the war and continued to support refugee organisations. After the war, he became involved in the numerous other charitable groups, especially in his hometown of Maidenhead, west of London. He was the president of the Maidenhead branch of the learning disability charity Mencap for more than 40 years until his death, and worked with the Abbeyfields organization to set up homes for the elderly in the town two of which are named Nicholas House and Winton House.
Winton was a keen fencer who lost his chance to compete at the Olympics because of the outbreak of the war, Winton worked with his younger brother Bobby to found the Winton Cup, still Britain’s main team fencing competition.
Winton’s wife died in1999. He is survived by his son Nicholas and daughter Barbara.
