British Schindler

The topic of the Holocaust, one of the darkest periods in our history, has always interested me. An event whose consequences are still being felt today, and yet, many are silent about it.All that remains is the quiet confession of a surviving victim and a pile of data to testify to future generations about what happened and what must not be repeated.While reading the books, I came to many insights and facts:

-A third of the then Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust.

-Among them, 1.1. millions of victims, they were children!

-In 1945, Eisenhower predicted that people would deny the seriousness and tragedy of the Holocaust in the future.

-Bergen Belzen, the camp where Anne Frank died, was released just a few weeks after her death

-Adolf Hitler planned to open a "Museum of the Exterminated Race" after the war, which would exhibit all valuables and personal belongings stolen from the Jewish people.

-The Paris Islamic community helped the Jews there, giving them Islamic documents.

-Sigmund Freud's four sisters were killed in the camps.

-Alfred Hitchcock made a film about the Holocaust in 1945. It was hidden until 1984.

-Karl Josef Silberbauer, the SS officer who arrested Anne Frank and her family, continued to work for the West German Secret Service after the war and bought the book The Diary of Anne Frank, just to see if his name was mentioned.

Dear friends, read the touching story of a brave and humble man. You will not be indifferent. While I was writing the story, I cried believing that this evil would never happen again.

Sir Nicholas Winton, or "British Schindler" as he is still called, is credited with rescuing 669 children from concentration camps in Czechoslovakia. He died in 2015 in London at the age of 106. Some would say that God gave him a long life and a peaceful and blessed death.

Back in 1938, at the invitation of a friend, Sir Nicholas came to Czechoslovakia to see for himself the Nazi tyranny. Prague has been occupied for two months and life has become dangerous for everyone, especially for Jews.

However, while numerous international organizations had already organized mass evacuations of children from Austria and Germany, nothing similar existed for Jewish children from Czechoslovakia.

His children

Sir Nicholas was not an elected official, a man of high rank in the British army, or even someone who had distinguished himself in the past with his humanitarian work. However, in Prague, he began to meet with parents who were desperate in their attempts to get their children out of the country. That's when he started compiling a list of names.

He returned to Britain and set out to organize a rescue mission, finding breadwinners for the children, raising funds and bypassing the complicated bureaucracy. He managed to ensure that each child received 50 pounds (today's 2,500) so that one day they could return home. To that end, he even falsified documents and permits in order to speed up the departure of children from Czechoslovakia.

Only with nameplates around their necks, the children arrived at Liverpool station where Nicholas and his mother were waiting for them. Some of the children had relatives in Britain, but most went to the homes of complete strangers.

Eight trains arrived in London. The ninth is not. It was supposed to arrive on September 1, 1939, transporting about 250 children, the largest number by then. On that day, the Germans occupied Poland and the borders were closed. All the children from that train ended up in concentration camps.

"Niko's children" as they are called today, were more fortunate. Many of them returned to their families in Czechoslovakia after the war. Those whose parents perished in the death camps remained in Britain, in the families that Nicholas Winton found for them.

It is estimated that there are over 6,000 descendants of these children in the world today, and many of them remained in contact with "Uncle Niki" until his death.

A humble hero

Sir Nicholas always pointed out that everyone in his place would do the same. He did not like to be compared to Schindler because he thought that people like him, those who organized their rescue missions from the field, right from occupied Europe, risked much more and that they were "real heroes".

Winton's heroic endeavor went almost unnoticed for decades - until in 1988 the BBC surprised him with a show dedicated to his reunion with the people he saved and their descendants. He sat in the audience completely unaware that he was surrounded by people whose lives he had saved:

Because of his feat, Nicholas Winton received several British and Czech decorations, and a noble title from British Queen Elizabeth II. The last, highest state Czech decoration - the Order of the White Lion, was taken over at the end of October 2014 in the Lani Castle, near Prague, by the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman.

- In a way, I didn't have to live long enough to give all these people a chance to exaggerate in what I think I did 100 years ago. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time - said Vinton, taking the medal.

Tens of thousands of Czech students signed a proposal in 2007 for Nicholas Winton to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but that did not happen.

Thanks for reading my articles! @Snezana28