Nicholas Winton
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Sir Nicholas Winton MBE |
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|---|---|
Winton in Prague on 10 October 2007
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| Born |
Nicholas George Wertheim 19 May 1909 Hampstead, London, England |
| Died | 1 July 2015 (aged 106) Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, Berkshire, England |
| Other names | Nicholas George Wortham |
| Alma mater | Stowe School |
| Occupation | Humanitarian |
| Years active | 1938–2015 |
| Spouse(s) | Grete Gjelstrup (m. 1948; d. 1999) |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | nicholaswinton |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | Royal Air Force |
| Years of service | 1940–1954 |
| Rank | Flight lieutenant |
| Battles/wars | Second World War |
Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE (born Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children transportation"). Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The world found out about his work over 40 years later, in 1988. The British press dubbed him the "British Schindler".
In 2003 Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia". On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion (1st class), by Czech President Miloš Zeman.
Nicholas Winton was born on 19 May 1909 in Hampstead, London, a son of bank manager Rudolph Wertheim and wife Barbara (née Wertheimer). His parents were German Jews who had moved to London two years earlier. The family name was Wertheim, but they changed it to Winton in an effort at integration. They also converted to Christianity, and Winton was baptised.
In 1923, Winton entered Stowe School, which had just opened. He left without qualifications, attending night school while volunteering at the Midland Bank. He then went to Hamburg, where he worked at Behrens Bank, followed by Wasserman Bank in Berlin. In 1931, he moved to France and worked for the Banque Nationale de Crédit in Paris. He also earned a banking qualification in France. Returning to London, he became a broker at the . Though a stockbroker, Winton was also "an ardent socialist who became close to Labour Party luminaries Aneurin Bevan, Jennie Lee and Tom Driberg." Through another socialist friend, Martin Blake, Winton became part of a leftwing circle opposed to appeasement and concerned about the dangers posed by the Nazis.
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