Person    | Male  Born 19/5/1909  Died 1/7/2015

Sir Nicholas Winton

Categories: Children, Peace

Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE was a British banker and humanitarian who established an organisation to rescue children at risk from Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton supervised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of WW2. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children's transport").

Born in Hampstead as Nicholas George Wertheim. His parents were German Jews who had moved to London two years earlier. They changed the family name to Winton and converted to Christianity. In 1938-9 he became involved, with others, in the work to get Jewish children out of Europe before the war began. Only Britain and Sweden agreed to take children. America was asked but failed to take any.

His rescue work was unknown until 1983 when he became a national hero and was honoured. Died, aged 106, in Slough.

There are statues of Winton at Prague railway station (by Flor Kent) and at Maidenhead railway station.

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This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Sir Nicholas Winton

Creations i

Kindertransport - Kent

{Carved into the right side of the plinth:} Pro dítě {Czech for “for the chil...

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Thompson James Filmer

Thompson James Filmer

Thompson James Filmer is the 1st on the left of the seven boys sitting in the photograph of the scout troop. He was born on 28 January 1900, the eighth of the eleven children of John Apps Budds Fi...

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John Procter, the younger

John Procter, the younger

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Evelina Hospital for Sick Children

Evelina Hospital for Sick Children

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Group, Children, Medicine

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Upper North Street school WW1 bomb

Upper North Street school WW1 bomb

This bomb was one of those dropped during the first daylight bombing attack on London by a fixed-wing aircraft. Prior to this the bombs had been dropped from Zeppelins. Just before noon the bomb br...

Event, Children, Tragedy

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Francis Chappell & Sons

Francis Chappell & Sons

Funeral directors in South London and Kent. Formerly a family firm, now owned by Dignity.

Group, Commerce

2 memorials