The Touching Moment When Nicholas Winton (RIP) Met the Children He Saved During the Holocaust

Note: This post was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on July 27, 2014. Mr. Win­ton sad­ly passed away today (7/1/2015). He was 106 years old. Read his obit­u­ary, which doc­u­ments his amaz­ing deeds, here.

Pro­cras­ti­na­tors take note.

Some teens of my acquain­tance have been agi­tat­ing for a meet­ing with a Holo­caust sur­vivor. These encoun­ters, com­mon enough in my child­hood, are grow­ing less so as those with first­hand knowl­edge enter their gold­en years. Bear in mind that Eva Lavi, the youngest per­son named on Oskar Schindler’s List, is now 76.

Sir Nicholas Win­ton is def­i­nite­ly an inspir­ing fig­ure, and not just for his remark­able longevi­ty. From late 1938 until the start of the war, he man­aged to res­cue 669 Czech children—most of them Jews.

Win­ton made no pub­lic men­tion of his hero­ics, until 1988, when the BBC obtained his res­cue scrap­book and used it to coor­di­nate a mas­sive live on-air sur­prise dur­ing the pro­gram That’s Life (see above).

I plan on using the 60 Min­utes episode below to intro­duce my teen friends—most of whom stout­ly declare they’d have hid­den Anne Frank with­out a sec­ond thought—to a man whose actions speak loud­er than words.

via Holy Kaw

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mem­o­ry of the Camps (1985): The Holo­caust Doc­u­men­tary that Trau­ma­tized Alfred Hitch­cock, and Remained Unseen for 40 Years

Alice Herz-Som­mer, the Old­est Holo­caust Sur­vivor (Thanks to the Pow­er of Music), Dies at 110

Rudolf Braz­da, Last Man to Wear the Pink Tri­an­gle Dur­ing the Holo­caust, Tells His Sto­ry

Anne Frank: The Only Exist­ing Video Now Online

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday


by | Permalink | Comments (5) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (5)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Regev Porat says:

    I am sor­ry to say that it is the first time l hear about this great man, Sir Nicholas Win­ton. Thank you for post­ing.

  • AB says:

    I read your post, fol­lowed all of the links and watched all of the videos. The word that comes to mind: despair. Then, Sir Nicholas Win­ton reminds me that one man can make a dif­fer­ence. Out­side, the rain pours down like the heav­ens know what I saw, and mourns…

  • Phil Richardson says:

    How does one instill courage in oth­ers? Through example…prepare your­selves to act when the call comes, but don’t just wait for it, seek it out, take heart and be brave…many will ben­e­fit from your actions

  • Stephen says:

    I’m in the mid­dle of watch­ing Nick­’s Fam­i­ly on Net­flix stream­ing. It is main­ly inter­views, but with doc­u­men­tary footage and drama­ti­za­tion thrown in.

  • simone gad says:

    I watched the doc­u­men­tary years ago and was very moved. See­ing these 2 inter­views was so touch­ing. What a great man! So many of us were betrayed in the holo­caust-so many, includ­ing my fam­i­ly and par­ents. A real hero-Sir Nicholas Win­ton.

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.