Sir Nicholas Winton Honored in Special Ceremony

Ambassador Michael Žantovský led the tributes to Sir Nicholas Winton, who celebrated his 105th birthday, at a special event at the embassy of the Czech Republic.

Winton is a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain.

As well as honoring the man who has become known as the “British Schindler,” Ambassador Žantovský passed on messages of congratulations from, amongst others, the Chief Rabbi and the Czech Prime Minister. He also read out the greeting from the Czech President Milos Zeman, who invited Sir Nicholas to a ceremony in Prague in November when he will bestow on him the Order of the White Lion.

The event was also organized to launch Barbara Winton’s biography of her father.  “If It’s Not Impossible...The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton” chronicles the span of his life from his privileged upbringing to his army days through to his remarkable reunion on Esther Rantzen’s That’s Life show in 1988 with some of the 669 children he rescued from Czechoslovakia.