ARRIVAL TO PRAGUE

I arrived to beautiful Prague in 1938, more than 60 years ago. But then, in winter 1938, we were all afraid. Nazi occupied the Sudetes and my friend Martin Blake who was helping refugees asked me to come and help him. 

It seemed to us that Hitler`s Germany will occupy also the rest of Bohemia. And there were all those refugees whose lives would be in peril if Hitler moved to divided Czechoslovakia. But when we sent that information to London to quite important people in those days, they said: “You are too close and you can`t see it well. You can`t see forest for the trees”. But unfortunately it turned out that we were right. On the March 15, the Hitler`s Germany occupied whole Bohemia.

 

THE DECISION TO HELP CHILDREN

I visited several refugee camps. There were a lot of children and nobody knew what would happen to them. I asked: „What happens to all those children of the refugees?“ Some of then did not have any parents, nobody cared about them. And I had an idea to try and save the children myself. Everybody in Prague told me: „Look, there exists no organisation for helping children, we don`t have neither time nor money to do that. Besides nobody lets children go on their own. But you can try it if you want!” In my opinion there is nothing that cannot be done if it is a really senseful thing.

 

BACK IN LONDON

After I returned to England I tried to find foster homes for those children. I didn`t have an office, employees or famous name. I simply printed headed notepaper reading „English Office for Refugees, Czechoslovakia, Children`s section“. I nominated myself as the honorary chairman and thus became unofficially official honorary secretary of this unofficial organisation.

When I say London office it was only me, a secretary and a few volunteers. We worked in my place and our initial goal was to find people to adopt Czech children. We did it as a kind of business activity. For example we found someone in Glasgow who said he wanted ten year old girl. But how else you can bring him ten year old girl than that you send him many photographs and say „Pick one!“ Retrospectively it sounds terribly I think, but it was quick and it worked.

I suppose that children from our lists whom nobody adopted have died. It was a bit of a lottery, which of them came. We could only bring them to England. We addressed governents of many countries, I begged them to take some of them, but they all found various reasons why not to do that.

 

WILSON`S STATIONS IN PRAGUE

We`re back at the station where the real drama of 669 children who came to England took place 60 years ago. They must have been scenes of indescribable anxiety, tears of all mothers leaving their children. Children who didn`t know whether they were going on holidays or leaving their parents forever. Whether something good awaits them, and asked: „Why are you sending me away?“

 

LIVERPOOL STREET STATION IN LONDON

I don`t think anybody can imagine how Liverpool Street Station looked like when all 250 foster parents met there. The train is coming. 250 squealing and screaming children gets off and stands on the platform. Many of them thinking they were on holidays were happy, some too young to know what was happening around them. But we had to bring those 250 children and the same number of grown-ups together, and it was not an easy task.

 

LAST TRAIN IN PRAGUE

In the beginning of September we organized the train transport for 250 children. It means we had to bring all children and their relatives to the station so that they could say their farewell. In London we had 250 families to take care of them when they come. You can imagine how it looked in Prague, all the anxiety and fear.

The departure was ready, but suddenly everything was cancelled. On September 1, 1939, war broke out. All children remained stuck there. I searched very long to find out what happened to them, but nobody have never heard of any of them. I assume that later they were deported to concentration camps.

 

WINTON AFTER WAR

After war I involved myself in working for international organisation for refugees which was a part of United Nations. I considered it to be my duty, to finish my effort by helping the refugees return back to their homes where they were expelled from. I got a job as a director`s assistant at the department of reparations. The whole German war loot found was returned to us. All that was found in concentration camps – jewelry, gold and false teeth, simply everything was sold. 95 percent of the profit went to Jewish Agency which helped refugees. Later I got a job at the Paris International bank where I met my wife Greta. In 1948 I got married and we had three kids.

CHARITABLE WORK

I did much charitable work for nothing else than the fakt I have an leaning towards it, I like doing it. I began to work in the field of helping handicapped children because we too had one. I also dedicated myself to work for elderly people – I obtained money and built several pensions for the old and helped create boards which run them. I think these days they don`t say that I help, I think they say I hinder.

 

FENCING

I used to be good in fencing and competed for England team against Scotland. After war me and my brother helped organise fencing clubs in our country. We founded „Winton`s Cup“, a fencing competition. Nowadays it is the biggest fencing event in Great Britain. A also like working in the garden and now it takes my time instead other things I used to do before. My main physical activity was always fencing and since I can`t fence anymore I dedicate my spare energy to grow vegetables.

 

THE BOOK OF DOCUMENTS

This book of cuttings – documents with the list of all saved children we brought to England a gentleman made for me in 1939 who worked in my office. That book should just simply remind me of that time. It stayed in one of my suitcases in the attic of my house for fifty years. My wife found it with all documents concerning things I`ve been doing in 1939.

Of course it was a big surprise for her because she didn`t know anything about it and when she saw the book she thought it would be interesting for those saved children. So thanks to my wive`s activity we began to meet many „saved children“. Nowadays we are in contact with about 150 of them, they write to us, and we had several meetings and conferrences. The only children we contacted are those who heard this story. And there are many countries where people didn`t hear Winton`s story. I think we don`t have any contact with children from South America and it is known that many refugees left there after the war. We contacted only 150 out of 669 saved children.

In 1989 I went to Israel and gave Yad Vashem the originals of all documents that my wife had found. Many copies of the book came to existence and the result is that today instead of getting rid of one book with documents my room is absolutely packed with papers. I have an enormous correspondency and from my point of view it would probably be better if this story remained unknown.

 

WINTONS OPINIONS:

 

LAUGHTER

Laughter is the most important thing in life. I think most people take themselves too seriously and that keeps them from acting really naturally.

NEVER GIVE UP

I think taht most people say that something can`t be done because they never tried. It is only an excuse. Most things that can`t be done at the first sight can be accomplished by hard work. I think it is the will that people lack.

The philosophy of Mr.Wintom is to think positively, generously and never say „It`s not possible“. Love is very important. It is the only thing that is really important. It is an art of compromise. It is an art of coexistence. The art of even if not sharing the same common ground, but at least tolerate the interests of other people. My wife doesn`t object when I go to play bridge, and I don`t object her going to one of her ladies` parties.

HAPPINESS

I think children bring us much happiness, but also a lot of worries when they are not doing well. I think happiness is when you are successful in what you like to do.

I always liked doing charity work for elderly people and handicapped children. For me and my wife happiness is the fact that we are able to tolerate each other even after fifty years. Or even more than just tolerate.

FAITH

If you believe in God then I don`t understand why should there be a difference in believing as a Catholic, Jew or Moslem. The basis of all religions: the good, ethics, not killing and taking care of our parents is the same. I think people should care less about what divides them in religion and more about ethics.