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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Other Subjects

Coram's Fields

Coram's Fields

The memorial at the entrance to these fields tells how this playground came into existence. It is the only public space in London where adults are not allowed without children.

Place, Children, Gardens / Agriculture

3 memorials
Marjorie Hewson

Marjorie Hewson

Nursery nurse. She worked for over forty years at Christ Church School, in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, (the area in which she grew up and lived herself). A popular character, remembered by many for h...

Person, Children, Education

1 memorial
Eleanor Harvey

Eleanor Harvey

Eleanor Harvey was born on 2 September 1907 in Merton, Surrey, (now the London Borough of Merton), the second of the three daughters of William George Harvey (b.1874) and Winifred Harvey née Gunner...

Person, Children, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Joe Cahill

Joe Cahill

Devoted many years of his life to working with young people at Coram's Fields. Died before Spring 1993.

Person, Children

1 memorial
Moses Jethro James

Moses Jethro James

Drowned in the 1898 HMS Albion disaster, aged 14. Buried in grave 2 at the memorial in East London Cemetery.

Person, Children, Tragedy

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Gnr. W. R. Stinchcombe
War dead, WW2
1 memorial