Skip to main content

A truly remarkable 105 year old

Great Britain has its own Oscar Schindler, now an incredible 105 years of age.   From Australia's ABC radio program Correspondent's Report.....

"ELIZABETH JACKSON: For most of us raising a family, forming productive happy relationships, not harming too many people along the way, could be the measure of a successful life.

Not many of us get to save lives, but Sir Nicholas Winton did, and thousands owe their existence to him.

And, at 105, the man dubbed the 'British Schindler' has been honoured in the UK for saving mainly Jewish children just before the outbreak of World War Two.

Philip Williams tells his story.

(Brass band playing)

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Five years after qualifying for a telegram from the Queen for his 100th birthday, Nicholas Winton was in the Czech capital Prague being presented with the nation's highest honour.

(Official announcement in Czech)

Back in 1938, he made a decision that would change his and thousands of other people's lives. Instead of taking a skiing holiday as planned, he travelled to what was then Czechoslovakia and saw the refugee camps outside Prague.

As the son of German Jews, he knew the terrible danger facing these people.

NICHOLAS WINTON: I knew better than most, and certainly better than the politicians, what was going on in Germany. I mean, we had staying with us people who were refugees from Germany at that time, some who knew they were in danger of their lives.

(Steam train pulling out of station)

PHILIP WILLIAMS: He organised eight trainloads of children to be taken from Prague to London - the so-called Kindertransports - and found foster parents for all 669 of them.

A ninth train was stopped by the outbreak of war; of the 250 children, none survived the war.

(Fanfare at Czech ceremony)

PHILIP WILLIAMS: In the grand room, the ceremony was witnessed by some of those he saved, now in their 80s, many looking older than Nicholas Winton, still as sharp as he is modest.

NICHOLAS WINTON: In a way perhaps, I shouldn't have lived so long to give everybody the opportunity to exaggerate everything in the way they are doing today.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: His story remained hidden, even from his own family, for 50 years, until his wife stumbled on a scrapbook. But it wasn't widely known until an extraordinary TV program in the 1980s. Sir Nicholas Winton, as he then was, was in a studio audience of several hundred when this question was asked:

PROGRAM HOST: Can I ask, is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, could you stand up please?

(Movement in audience)

Mr Winton, would you like to turn around?

PHILIP WILLIAMS: To his utter amazement, everyone he had assumed was part of a random audience stood up.

PROGRAM HOST: You'll have the chance to meet these people properly after the program. In the meantime Mr Winton, on behalf of all of them, thank you very much indeed.

(Applause)

PHILIP WILLIAMS: As those he saved had families, the Winton kindertransport tree has grown to 5,000 people.

(Fanfare at Czech ceremony)

At 105, he has reached a grand vantage point few of us will ever know, and surveying the conflicts and tensions now, he is gripped by pessimism.

NICHOLAS WINTON: I don't think we ever learn from the mistakes of the past. No, I don't think we've learnt anything. I mean, we're now - the world today - is in a more dangerous situation than it has ever been, and so long as you've got weapons of mass destruction which can finish off any conflict, nothing is safe anymore.

(Sound of steam train)

PHILIP WILLIAMS: But he did make safe those little children, bewildered in a new country, a new language, far from their families most of whom were killed. Clutching their single suitcase at Liverpool Street station, it was all so alien, but they were safe and they did survive.

The actions of one determined, principled individual made all the difference."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary.   The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the

An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Climate change: Well-organised hoax?

There are still some - all too sadly people with a voice who are listened to - who assert that climate change is a hoax. Try telling that to the people of Colorado who recently experienced horrendous bushfires, or the people of Croatia suffering with endless days of temps of 40 degrees (and not much less than 30 at night time) some 8-10 degrees above the norm. Bill McKibben, take up the issue of whether climate change is a hoax, on The Daily Beast : Please don’t sweat the 2,132 new high temperature marks in June—remember, climate change is a hoax. The first to figure this out was Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who in fact called it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” apparently topping even the staged moon landing. But others have been catching on. Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out that the idea that carbon dioxide is “harmful to the environment is almost comical.” The always cautious Mitt Romney scoffed at any damage too: “Scientists will fig