"Britain's Schindler" Dead at 106: "The World Has Lost a Great Man"

Isaiah Narciso : Jul 2, 2015
The Gospel Herald

Winton earned the label of "Britain's Schindler" after he helped save 669 Jewish children from the Holocaust. While he was born to parents of German-Jewish descent, he and his family converted to Christianity.

(United Kingdom)—British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton, who is best known for saving hundreds of Jewish children in Czechoslovakia before the outbreak of World War II, died of respiratory failure in England on Wednesday. He was 106 years old. (Photo via The Independent)

According to a Naomi Koppel of the Independent, Winton earned the label of "Britain's Schindler" after he helped save 669 Jewish children from the Holocaust. While he was born to parents of German-Jewish descent, he and his family converted to Christianity.

"The world has lost a great man," British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "We must never forget Sir Nicholas Winton's humanity in saving so many children from the Holocaust."

According to the Independent, Winton worked as a clerk at the London Stock Exchange back in 1938. During that time, a friend urged him to travel to Czechoslovakia and cancel their skiing holiday. "Alarmed by the influx of refugees from the Sudetenland, which had recently annexed by Germany, Winton and his friend feared, correctly, that Czechoslovakia would soon be invaded by the Nazis and that Jewish residents from there would be sent to concentration camps," Koppel wrote.

According to Catherine E. Shoichet and Don Melvin of CNN, Winton went back to London and started organizing evacuations of children in 1939. He arranged the logistics of the operation by gathering volunteers to outsmart immigration restrictions and convince British families to open their homes to the affected children. "It wasn't an easy task," Shoichet and Melvin wrote. "He had to arrange train rides out of Prague, find foster families who'd take in the children and even forge immigration documents." (Photo: Reuters/Petr Josek/via Gospel Herald)

CNN reported that Winton was able to get eight transports full of Jewish children out of reach from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. However, a ninth transport with 250 children failed to depart on Sept. 1, 1939, the day World War II officially began. "If the train had been a day earlier, it would have come through," Winton said. "Not a single one of those children was heard of again, which is an awful feeling."

The Independent reported that while many more Jewish children were saved from Berlin and Vienna, Winton's operation stood out because he largely conducted them on his own. "Maybe a lot more could have been done. But much more time would have been needed, much more help would have been needed from other countries, much more money would have been needed, much more organization," Winton said.

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