It was only after Mr. Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988 — a dusty record of names, pictures and documents detailing a story of redemption from the Holocaust — that he spoke of his all-but-forgotten work in the deliverance of children who, like the parents who gave them up to save their lives, were destined for Nazi concentration camps and extermination....
“You can’t throw those papers away,” she responded. “They are children’s lives.”
“I did not think for one moment that they would be of interest to anyone so long after it happened,” Mr. Winton recalled later. But he reluctantly agreed to let her explore the matter....
July 2, 2015
"Nicholas Winton, a Briton who said nothing for a half-century about his role in organizing the escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia..."
"... on the eve of World War II, a righteous deed like those of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, died on Wednesday in Maidenhead, England. He was 106...."
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20 comments:
An amazing man with a beautiful story.
I would say 'they don't make them like that anymore' but it is really past that. There are few heros so modest and private.
One determined person can make a difference.
That is how a hero acts.
If everyone is brave, it's easier for everyone to be brave. But being brave alone is very very heroic.
What Maybee said on being brave alone.
Quiet hero,rest in blessed peace.
What an inspiring story! Thanks for highlighting this article.
Individually, human beings are capable of amazing acts of good will (that term seems inadequate, but I can't pull up a better one right now). I don't know what so often goes wrong when we act collectively.
The true definition of a "hero".
White Privilege. Bourgeois Virtues. Nothing to see here. Move along.
The local paper noted that one of the children became a (now-retired) UW Professor.
Never let your left hand know what your right is doing.
Pure humility but a trail of blessings nevertheless.
A Briton repeatedly bribing a Gestapo officer to smuggle out Jews was possible in 1938-39 Czechoslovakia. Then, many Germans, even Nazi Party members, saw "voluntary" self-exile of the Jews as a workable solution to the "Jewish Problem". Especially, when it came to German Jews, because the Germans did have some qualms about openly murdering their neighbors, after all. That's why German Jews had one of the highest survival rates of any Jews in the areas under Nazi control.
This would have been impossible in 1943 Poland or the Ukraine. There, everyone involved, including the bribed Gestapo officer, would have quickly ended up dead.
I don't quite know if Mr. Winton quite counts as a righteous Gentile or a righteous Jew, but in any case, I'm glad he is memorialized at Yad Vashem. He certainly deserves a place of honor there.
Not mentioned is that Winton received a knighthood for completely different charity work, or that he was featured on a "This Is Your Life"-type program in Britain, where he was surprised to find that dozens of people around him were the children he saved or their descendants.
Correction: he was awarded the OBE for his other charity work, but knighted for the Kindertransport.
Great story of a genuine hero, we need more of those.
Not to overly generalize, but Americans tend to lack perspective (myself included) in interpreting WWII. We view it as the last "good war". We love the photos of the Navy guy kissing the girl in Times Square, and our Marines hoisting the flag on Mt. Suribachi.
For Europeans, however, WWII was an epic, f%%@ing disaster. 75 Million dead, which includes way more civilians than military men. And, in its aftermath, during all the celebrations, our "ally" (the Soviets) raped their way across Germany and swallowed up the Eastern half of the continent.
Even 70 years later, Europe is still feeling the consequences of WWII, and the Cold War that followed. To avoid any future war, it has basically given up on its judeo-christian heritage, capitalism and military defense to slouch towards a benign socialism.
We'll see how it turns out.
How can he be courageous if he wasn't on the cover of Vanity Fair?
BAG, you got it all wrong. Here is the history of WW2: Republicans admiring Fascist railroad timetables and sympathizing with Nazis, internment camps for loyal Japanese-Americans, the Tuskegee Airmen winning the war in Europe for ungrateful racist nation, Navajo code-talkers winning the war in the Pacific for ungrateful racist nation, atom bombs dropped on peace-loving POC in Japan, white sailor sexually assaulting a nurse in Times Square. The end.
@Char Char Binks
Thank God you have a good sense of humor, because that is one depressing interpretation -- and probably accurate from the leftist perspective!
I posted his obit on my Facebook page yesterday. He was a true hero. His only regret, that he couldn't save more children.
Vicki from Pasadena
Thanks for posting this. An inspiring life that should inspire us all to do better for humanity.
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