Sir Nicholas Winton, a Briton who saved hundreds of Jewish children in Prague from the Nazis before World War II, has died at the age of 106, his family said on Wednesday.
Son-in-law Stephen Watson said Winton died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital in Slough, west of London.
Born in London to German-Jewish parents, Winton traveled to Nazi-occupied former Czechoslovakia — which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 — as a young employee of the London Stock Exchange.
Photo: Reuters
There, he organized trains that transported 669 children — most of them Jews — to Britain in 1939, saving them from concentration camps.
An additional train was set to leave on Sept. 3, 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, but the borders were already sealed. None of the 250 children were seen again.
Winton’s efforts earned him the nickname “English Schindler” in reference to Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Polish Jews during the war.
“A good man, Sir Nicholas Winton, has passed away. He will remain forever a symbol of courage, deep humanity and incredible modesty,” Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Twitter.
“He was a man I admired for his courage,” former Czech president Milos Zeman said on Twitter.
“The world has lost a great man. We must never forget Sir Nicholas Winton’s humanity in saving so many children from the Holocaust,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter.
Winton kept quiet about his mission for 50 years until his wife found evidence of it in their attic.
He was knighted in 2003, and his Czech supporters have repeatedly petitioned for him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
“He was incredibly unique in that he did not tell anyone for such a long time,” Czech Federation of Jewish Communities head Tomas Kraus said. “He was not the only one; there were more such personalities. In his case, it is the modesty that is so unique, he considered it an unimportant episode in his life.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks praised him as a “giant of moral courage.”
“Our sages said that saving a life is like saving a universe. Sir Nicholas saved hundreds of universes,” Sacks said.
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