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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA real nice story -105th birthday party for man who saved 669 children from the Nazis
Sir Nicholas Winton
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/nicholas-winton-birthday-man-saved-children-nazis
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It could almost be a normal birthday party, with music, presents and a cake. But the cake has 105 candles and many of the 100 or so guests who are here to celebrate the birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton owe him their life.
Winton's 105th birthday party is at the Czech embassy in London, and the guests here are the offspring of 669 children - mostly Jewish - rescued by Winton from almost certain death in the months before the second world war broke out in 1939. Most of their families ended up interred and murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Today they call themselves "Nicky's children".
There are around 6,000 people around the world today who owe Winton their lives. It was late in December 1938 when the stockbroker from Hampstead cancelled a holiday to go to Prague to see what was happening to refugees there. Winton spent only three weeks in the city - the most leave he could get from his job at home - but it was enough time for him to recognise the impending threat facing the refugees who had arrived following the Nazi invasion of the Czech Sudentenland in October 1938.
He immediately set about organising eight evacuations of the children on the Kindertransport train. He advertised in newspapers for foster homes, got the necessary permits from the immigration office in the UK, and persuaded the Germans to let the children leave the country. When Winton returned to his job in London on 21 January 1939 he continued the rescue mission, working in the evenings until the last train was cancelled when war broke out in September 1939.
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Happy Birthday indeed!!!
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)Happy Birthday, Mr Winton!!! And a wish for many more!!!
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)joeybee12
(56,177 posts)The guy keeps going...great!
malaise
(269,054 posts)malthaussen
(17,204 posts)That's a great story. Shows that there are conditions under which one individual can make a vital difference in many lives.
-- Mal
whistler162
(11,155 posts)then he starts again.
DesertDiamond
(1,616 posts)lark
(23,105 posts)I just checked the local fish wrap here and could find no mention of this. We need good stories about the good things that people do just to act as a little balance to all the god-awful horrible stuff the 1% and their lackeys do to us and our world daily. This is such an awe-inspiring story, touches my heart.
Thanks for sharing!!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Certainly there was a law against what he did.
Rhiannon12866
(205,467 posts)malaise
(269,054 posts)Benghazi.
Thanks for the link.
Rhiannon12866
(205,467 posts)Think it's gone way downhill ever since the retirement of creator/producer Don Hewitt and legend Mike Wallace. I used to work with CBS, so dealt with the news division and 60 Minutes specifically, and they were just terrific back then.
JI7
(89,252 posts)Lunacee_2013
(529 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Dorian Gray
(13,496 posts)Courageous and generous. He touched so many young lives, and they will never forget him.
bonniealveris
(4 posts)Its great, and happy birthday
madokie
(51,076 posts)Another good man who didn't die young