Posted on 07/05/2015 2:52:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
Even the most open and loving husbands do not admit everything they did in their 20s to their wives. For most people it's that drink driving thing at University, the fancy dress outfit that really was in bad taste after-all or the BBQ fail that made everyone ill.
But the secret Grete Winton discovered about her husband in 1988 left her absolutely stunned. She found a scrap book on a routine clean of her loft detailing how her husband Nicholas had saved 669 Jewish children from the Holocaust when he was just 29-years-old.
The reason Grete did not know Nicholas' secret was that he had not bothered telling anyone at all. He spent his life believing the desire to save as many children as you could from certain death was nothing to be proud of, in fact it was the natural state of mankind. This was a view that appeared to be unphased by the obvious contradiction the Holocaust itself raised.
The story began when Winton who was a stockbroker at Midland Bank (now HSBC) and was due to go on a skiing holiday in 1938. At the last minute he went to Prague instead as a friend had suggested the local Jewish population were in dire need of help. Quickly Winton established an office at a hotel in the city and began the finding homes in the UK for the children.
UK law meant that Jewish children under 17 were free to come to Britain so long as they had somewhere to stay and £50. So Winton advertised, begged and forced families to take the children, which was a significant challenge in of itself because the UK government was already evacuating British children from the cities to the countryside.
To this day almost half of the children saved do not know that they got to the UK via this route as they were too young to remember.
Even those that did know about Kindertransport had never heard of Nicholas Winton until the TV show 'That's Life' broadcast the story. The presenter of the show Ester Rantzen, herself Jewish, was stunned that this British hero received no recognition. The show itself was tipped off by Grete.
One might assume Winton did not want the publicity because of the guilt that his last train, containing 250 children, did not make it through Poland before Hitler invaded. Families waited at London's Liverpool Street Station but the children they had offered to care for eventually went to the gas chambers not the loving homes of the volunteers.
Actually what kept Winton quiet was his wartime generation ethos. People back then just got on with their duty rather than expecting everyone to fawn all over them. When the town of Maidenhead suggested a statue of Winton he made two requests: that he was not depicted and that he did not have to come to the unveiling. He made it clear he was sick of being hailed as a hero.
At Liverpool Street Station the memorial is a statue of Jewish children who had just arrived from Europe there is no depiction of Winton at his request.
There is only one statue of Winton in the world, it is at Prague Station, and he was rumoured to have hated it. He certainly did all he could to discourage the Czechs from making copies of it to send to other countries.
Of course all of these statues are recent. Before 1988 Winton had not bothered mentioning what he had done for 50 years. He worked for as long as he could on the rescue, and when Hitler's rampage through Europe made further transports impossible he returned to his normal life. Albeit a normal life during a war!
People are not like Nicholas Winton today, a modern version of him would want a TV crew following him. Or the children would be picked by some awful reality TV show. Either way everyone involved would be angry if they did not get at least an extra 10,000 Twitter followers for getting involved in stopping the murder of these kids.
This is not the only example of how our standards have slipped. How many times do you turn on your TV and hear “he bravely battled cancer” well in Winton's day bravery was running into machine gun fire, not surviving a disease.
In Winton's day saving the life of a child was enough reward, whereas a lump of bronze that looks a bit like you is showing off. Winton died yesterday aged 106, and a concept died too… That virtue does not need a megaphone.
Or, like John Kerry, they'd take a Super 8 camera into combat to prove their bona fides for when they ran for office.
Then when he found out Vietnam wasn't popular...
Kerry Lied
Millions Died
It seems to me that the House of Saud should be trying to save the Syrian children from the depredations of ISIS.
There is even a bit of self-interest IMO. Every child that they save from ISIS is one fewer child soldier in ISIS army. Or if a girl one less incentive for a soldier to enter ISIS army.
The Day the Late Sir Nicholas Winton Met Children He Saved from Nazi Death Camps
With links to two videos on his life.
I think a lot of the people from that generation and my Dad’s generation would rather not remember what they battled, although as time moves on and society has changed I think they want the world to remember the times when people did have the courage to do what’s right.
I remember asking my dad what it was like to be on the front lines in Korea. He said, ‘Nellie, the reason any of us fights in war is so that you’d never have to know what it’s like.” But as he gets older I think he wants us to know the past so we can be prepared for the future. He’d like to write a book about the culture of his day - not to glorify the people then, but so that the new generations can know about the times when common sense and decency were a way of life for most.
He’s told about how people in his area survived the Great Depression by selling milk and eggs - about his mom’s role as the postmistress and store owner, how she forgave people their debts and let them “buy” what they needed at no cost, because she would not be responsible for children starving if she could help them. And Mom’s uncle who had gotten wealthy in the stock market and helped out just about everybody in their need when the market crashed.
He’d like the new generations to at least hear about a world that wasn’t upside-down, even when things were very tough.
I am so ashamed of what my generation has done to everything the past generations spent so much to give us.
He might also have feared some Nazis on the loose... I would expect a fellow like that to be a champion for others carrying on the cause, seeing by observation how that is sadly NOT normal for this world.
A genuinely good man. Too bad there aren’t more like him.
It boils down to paying the mercies and graces of God forward.
Thank you for posting!
Very well said
Thanks for sharing this post, Kaslin. The social media selfie generation will not comprehend it, but Winton certainly understood true humility.
The real heros always seem to be this way. Until he passed a few years ago I was honored to have an Iwo Jima Medal of Honor recipient as a friend. One of the most unassuming men that I have ever known.
Memo to Anthony Kennedy: THIS man is what dignity is all about.
Very well said
bump
No, thank the author for sharing. All I did was copy and paste
You are very welcome
And look at us now...
thanks for posting....I am a history buff, and this story and this man fascinate me on so many levels.
RIP... prayers to the Winston family...
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