Nicholas Winton was one of World War II’s most unlikely heroes, but thanks to his bravery and perseverance, 669 Jewish children escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia – and almost certain death – for the safety of Britain.
Born in 1909 into a London banking family with German and Jewish roots, by the late 1930s Nicholas was well placed to know about Hitler’s brutality.
‘Even though the true horror hadn’t yet emerged, we knew what was happening as we were putting up relatives and friends in our house. So I became convinced of the dire necessity to do something,’ he recalls.
This week, a new TV documentary reveals how the young stockbroker was the British equivalent of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved the lives of more than 1,000 Polish Jews during the war.