Briton who kept 669 from Nazis' grip dies

He got Jewish kids on trains to safety

Nicholas Winton spoke little over the years about his rescue of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia before Nazi forces invaded.
Nicholas Winton spoke little over the years about his rescue of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia before Nazi forces invaded.

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, died Wednesday. He was 106.

The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, England, of which Winton was a former president, announced his death on its website. He lived in Maidenhead, west of London.

It was only after Winton's wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988 -- a dusty record of names, pictures and documents -- that he spoke of his 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.

Winton was a London stockbroker in December 1938 when, on an impulse, he canceled a Swiss skiing vacation and flew to Prague at the behest of his friend Martin Blake, who was aiding refugees in the Sudetenland, the western region of Czechoslovakia that had just been annexed by Germany.

Winton found vast camps of refugees living in appalling conditions. War looked inevitable, and escape, especially for children, seemed hopeless, given the restrictions against Jewish immigration in the West.

Britain, however, was an exception. In late 1938, it began a program, called Kindertransport, to admit unaccompanied Jewish children up to age 17 if they had host families.

But there was no comparable mass-rescue effort in Czechoslovakia. Winton created one.

It involved dangers, bribes, forgery, secret contacts with the Gestapo, nine railroad trains, an avalanche of paperwork and a lot of money. Nazi agents started following him.

In his Prague hotel room, he met terrified parents desperate to get their children to safety, although it meant surrendering them to strangers in a foreign land.

He and a few volunteers, including his mother, had photos of the children printed and appealed for funds and foster homes in newspaper ads, and church and synagogue bulletins.

Hundreds of families volunteered to take children, and money trickled in from donors -- not enough to cover all the costs, but Winton made up the difference himself.

On March 14, 1939, it all came together. Hours before Hitler dismembered the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia as a German "Protectorate," the first 20 children left Prague on a train.

Winton and his colleagues later arranged for eight more trains to get the rest of the children out. He and the host families met the children in London. Each refugee had a small bag and wore a name tag.

Seven of the eight trains made it through, taking the total rescued to 669. About 250 children, the largest group, were on board the last train out, on Sept. 1, 1939. On that day, Hitler invaded Poland, all borders controlled by Germany were closed and Winton's rescue efforts came to an end.

"Within hours of the announcement, the train disappeared," he recalled. "None of the 250 children aboard was ever seen again." All were believed to have perished in concentration camps.

Nicholas George Wertheim was born in London on May 19, 1909, one of three children of Rudolf and Barbara Wertheimer Wertheim. His parents were of German-Jewish origin but converted to Christianity and changed the family name to Winton.

For 50 years he said nothing of the children's rescue, not even to his wife, Grete Gjelstrup, a Dane he had married in 1948. They had three children, Nicholas, Barbara and Robin. Robin died at age 7 in 1962. Winton's wife died in 1999.

The Rotary Club of Maidenhead said his daughter Barbara and two grandchildren were at his side at his death.

A Section on 07/02/2015

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