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| The Late Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE: The Power of Good - 'Save one life, save the world' |
| 2017-08-30 |
| In December 1938, Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old London stockbroker, was about to leave for a skiing holiday in Switzerland, when he received a phone call from his friend Martin Blake asking him to cancel his holiday and immediately come to Prague: "I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help. Don't bother bringing your skis." When Winton arrived, he was asked to help in the camps, in which thousands of refugees were living in appalling conditions. In October 1938, after the ill-fated Munich Agreement between Germany and the Western European powers, the Nazis annexed a large part of western Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. Winton was convinced that the German occupation of the rest of the country would soon follow. To him and many others, the outbreak of war seemed inevitable. The news of Kristallnacht, the bloody pogrom (violent attack) against German and Austrian Jews on the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, had reached Prague. Winton decided to take steps. "I found out that the children of refugees and other groups of people who were enemies of Hitler weren't being looked after. I decided to try to get permits to Britain for them. I found out that the conditions which were laid down for bringing in a child were chiefly that you had a family that was willing and able to look after the child, and £50, which was quite a large sum of money in those days, that was to be deposited at the Home Office. The situation was heartbreaking. Many of the refugees hadn't the price of a meal. Some of the mothers tried desperately to get money to buy food for themselves and their children. The parents desperately wanted at least to get their children to safety when they couldn't manage to get visas for the whole family. I began to realize what suffering there is when armies start to march." In terms of his mission, Winton was not thinking in small numbers, but of thousands of children. He was ready to start a mass evacuation. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #1 "Officials at the Home Office worked very slowly with the entry visas. We went to them urgently asking for permits, only to be told languidly, 'Why rush, old boy? Nothing will happen in Europe.' This was a few months before the war broke out. So we forged the Home Office entry permits." And the last transport of 250 children was slated to leave on the day Germany invaded Poland, which resulted in the borders being closed. Those children disappeared, never to be heard from again. It was this that the Brits and Europeans were trying to replicate by bringing in child migrants. Unfortunately, unlike the Jews three quarters of a century ago, most of the migrants who signed up for the modern program have had more selfish purposes. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-08-30 16:33 |