(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
On September 4th ’09, London’s Liverpool Street Station housed the reunion of some of the hundreds of Jewish Holocaust victims, 70 years after being liberated from the Nazis by Sir Nicholas George Winton, then a young stockbroker, now a 100 years old.
The elderly survivors gasped in joy, as they disembarked the vintage steam train to greet the person who freed them from the Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II.
“The three-day trip from Prague - by rail and ferry - recreated the fateful journey the survivors made as children, part of the kindertransports organized by Winton that carried 669 mostly Jewish children to safety in England” (Haaretz)
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(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Right: Original passengers arrive off The Winton Train at Liverpool Street station in London, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. The vintage train carrying Holocaust survivors pulled into London on Friday, ending a three-day trip across Europe that marked the 70th anniversary of their extraordinary rescue by a young British stockbroker. Waiting to greet them at London's Liverpool Street Station was Nicholas Winton, age 100, who organized the rail "kindertransports" that carried hundreds of mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to safety in 1939.
Winton, then a 29-year-old clerk at the London Stock Exchange came to the rescue of hundreds of Jewish refugee children, while visiting a friend in Czechoslovakia. Fearing a possible Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Winton attempted an agreement with British officials to resettle the children who would possibly get sent to concentration camps following the attack.
The agreement was finalized in exchange of a 50-pound guarantee per child and availability of foster homes in Britain. Winton fundraised his way to fulfill the requirements; eight trains sheltered the children and carried them to Britain right before the war outburst.
Winton greeted the former evacuees with exuberance,
“It's wonderful to see you all after 70 years…Don't leave it quite so long until we meet here again."(Haaretz)
"I am very glad he had the strength and energy to meet us. It is emotionally very important…For me, he is like a father…He gave us life."(80-year-old Joseph Ginat then aged 10).
"It's amazing. It happened so many years ago, yet I remember it so vividly…I never saw my parents again or my sister. My parents were shot and what they did with my sister I really don't want to know."(Otto Deutsch, 81).
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Winton's bravery was acknowledged after his wife encouraged his story to be documented. Britain’s then-Prime Minister Tony Blair has honored Winton as ‘Britain's Schindler’ and a film depicting his heroism has received several accolades, including the International Emmy Award in 2002.
“It is estimated there are 5,000 people around the world who owe their lives to Winton - the children he saved and their descendants” (Haaretz)
Oskar Schindler, Sir Nicholas George Winton are names that echo courage and will. If they could do it, can one of us not?
World peace is not an impossible. As the countdown begins to the International Day of Peace, celebrated on September 21st each year, let us urge global political leaders and all people in power to help distribute sovereignty worldwide and even out the social/cultural/religious and other disparities between nations and their people.
Here’s a global call for peace, unity and non-violence.
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