Nicholas Winton, 106, saved Jewish children from Holocaust

LONDON - He was just a 29-year-old clerk at the London Stock Exchange when he faced the challenge of his lifetime. Traveling with a friend to Czechoslovakia in 1938, as the drums of impending war echoed around Europe, Nicholas Winton was hit by a key realization.

The country was in danger and no one was saving its Jewish children.

Mr. Winton would almost single-handedly save more than 650 Jewish children from the Holocaust, earning himself the label "Britain's Schindler." He died Wednesday at age 106 in a hospital near Maidenhead, his hometown west of London, his family said.

Mr. Winton arranged trains to carry children from Nazi-occupied Prague to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends and saving them from almost certain death.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said "the world has lost a great man." Jonathan Sacks, Britain's former chief rabbi, said Mr. Winton "was a giant of moral courage and determination, and he will be mourned by Jewish people around the world."

Born in London on May 19, 1909 to parents of German Jewish descent, Mr. Winton himself was raised as a Christian.

Late in 1938, a friend contacted him and told him to cancel the skiing holiday they had planned and travel instead to Czechoslovakia.

Alarmed by the influx of refugees from the Sudetenland region recently annexed by Germany, Mr. Winton and his friend feared - correctly - that Czechoslovakia soon would be invaded by the Nazis and that its Jewish residents would be sent to concentration camps.

While some in Britain were working to get Jewish intellectuals and communists out of Czechoslovakia, no one was trying to save the children - so Mr. Winton took that task upon himself.

Returning to Britain, Mr. Winton persuaded British officials to accept children, as long as foster homes were found and a 50-pound guarantee was paid for each one to ensure they had enough money to return home later. At the time, their stays were only expected to be temporary.

Setting himself up as the one-man children's section of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, Mr. Winton set about finding homes and guarantors, drawing up lists of about 6,000 children, publishing pictures to encourage British families to agree to take them.

The first 20 children arrived by plane, but once the German army reached Prague in March 1939, they could only be brought out by train.

So, in the months before the outbreak of World War II, eight trains carried children from Czechoslovakia through Germany to Britain. In all, Mr. Winton got 669 children out.

The largest evacuation was scheduled for Sept. 3, 1939 - the day that Britain declared war on Germany. That train never left, and almost none of the 250 children trying to flee on it survived the war.

Several of the children he saved grew up to have prominent careers, including filmmaker Karel Reisz, British politician Alf Dubs and Canadian journalist Joe Schlesinger.

Mr. Winton served in the Royal Air Force during the war and continued to support refugee organizations. After the war, he became involved in numerous other charitable organizations, especially in Maidenhead.

Mr. Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 and also honored in the Czech Republic, where last year he received the country's highest state honor, the Order of the White Lion.