UPDATE::Nicholas Winton’s ‘Most Emotional Moment’ - The New York Times

It is with tremendous sadness that I post the following; humanity has lost a very humble man:

Nicholas Winton, who died Wednesday at 106, went 50 years without telling anyone about how he had rescued 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Even after his anonymity ended in 1988, when his wife’s discovery of an old scrapbook in their attic set off a wave of public recognition, he never fully explained why he did it.

One especially poignant appearance came in 1988 on the BBC program “That’s Life,” when for the first time, dozens of people who owed their lives to him assembled to thank him. In the video, he dabs tears as a woman hugs him. Then he is surprised to learn that the dozens of people seated around him were also children he had saved.

Nicholas Winton’s ‘Most Emotional Moment’ - The New York Times

ADDENDUM::Escaping Hitler | Web Exclusives | Daily Writings From Our Top Writers | First Things

Another view of the Kindertransport that Sir Nicholas was instrumental in creating,,,

Every spring, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, those who died under Nazi persecution are honored in ceremonies throughout the world; and those who survived it recall what they experienced. Anita Weisbord is among them.

When Hitler’s army forcefully annexed Austria to the German Reich in March of 1938, Weisbord’s homeland suddenly became unrecognizable. Born in Vienna in 1923 as the youngest of three in a loving, Jewish-Austrian household, she was shocked to see the fanaticism and bigotry of Austrians wearing swastika armbands and chanting of “Hitler awake, Jews perish!”

“That was the end of my childhood as I knew it,” recalls Weisbord today, “Overnight, Jews became non-persons. We lost all our rights.”

Escaping Hitler | Web Exclusives | Daily Writings From Our Top Writers | First Things

UPDATE::Man Who Saved 669 Kids From Nazis Turns 105, Gets Beautiful Birthday Honor

This is an update of sort to a story I posted in early February.

The story of Sir Nicholas Winton is one of the most profound tales of humanitarianism that you've probably never heard.

After saving 669 children, most of them Jewish, from likely death at Nazi concentration camps at the onset of World War II, it was announced Monday -- on Winton's 105th birthday -- that the heroic Englishman will be awarded the Order of the White Lion, the highest order in the Czech Republic, the Associated Press reported. In the official announcement, Czech President Milos Zeman noted Winton's example of humanity, selflessness, personal bravery and modesty as reasons for the prestigious honor. The award will be given to Winton this October.

Man Who Saved 669 Kids From Nazis Turns 105, Gets Beautiful Birthday Honor

A Man Discovers He’s Sitting With ‘Kids’ He Saved From Nazis (VIDEO) | LiberalAmerica.org

This piece comes courtesy of Tiffany Willis over at Liberal America. It is the story of Nicholas Winton and the Czech Kindertransport. A bit of history I knew nothing about,,,

In December 1938 — on the eve of World War II — a British stockbroker named Nicholas Winton was readying himself to leave for a skiing vacation when he was summoned unexpectedly by his friend.

Upon arrival in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Nicholas Winton found that he had traded his skiing vacation for working at a refugee camp for people who had been vacated from Western Czechoslovakia by Nazis after it was annexed by Germany.

Winton became very concerned about the people in the camp, particularly the children. Everyone was still saying “what war, we’re not going to war,” but he was convinced that German occupation would soon take over all of Czechoslovakia. Tales of the horrible Kristallnacht, a “night of broken glass” when Germans waged a violent attack against German and Austrian Jews, were fresh on his mind. He simply wasn’t having it. Not there, not those children.

A Man Discovers He’s Sitting With ‘Kids’ He Saved From Nazis (VIDEO) | LiberalAmerica.org