Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old stockbroker from London, was planning a skiing holiday in Switzerland. He never got there. Instead he received a telephone call from a friend in Prague: "Come to Prague. We need you." In Prague, he found a refugee crisis.
It was 1938, and Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia. Many were trying to get out of the country, or at least get their children out. Winton set up an office in his Prague hotel. He was in Prague for only two or three weeks, but on his return to London he worked for eight months in his spare time, raising money, finding foster homes and obtaining travel documents.
In nine months he arranged eight trains to bring 669 children, mainly Jewish, to safety in England. Many of their families perished in Auschwitz The trains stopped when Hitler invaded Poland and the borders were closed.
For 50 years Winton didn't speak of what he had done, even to his wife. (He had married in 1948.) Then in the 1980s his wife found children's photographs, a list of children's names and addresses and letters from parents in their attic. Word spread. Winton was invited to a television programme as part of the studio audience, and found the programme was about him.
Nicholas Winton died on Wednesday, aged 106.
You can see here a video about his life. It includes a moving moment from the television programme, where the presenter asked if there was anyone present who owed his or her life to Nicholas Winton. It looked like almost the entire room stood to their feet.
He was given a knighthood for his service to humanity, and the Order of the White Lion, the Czechs' highest honour. It is estimated that almost 6,000 people - the children and their descendants - are alive because of Sir Nicholas Winton.
"I work on the motto that if something's not impossible, there must be a way of doing it," he said.
It seemed like time stood
still yesterday as people remembered the Nazi killing machine on the
70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Hundreds of former
inmates gathered there, unable to forget.
At the Museum of the Holocaust
at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I remember standing in the Hall of
Remembrance, which commemorates the Nazi killing centres where countless
thousands died. I explained to the Jewish doorkeeper that I was not a
Jew, but a Gentile. I asked his forgiveness. "Ah," he said, "It wasn't
just the Jews. It was Communists, prisoners of war. . . "
A gentle man from Poland
recalled an incident while an inmate in Auschwitz. As he walked down a
corridor, he heard another inmate out of sight singing an aria from
Tosca. SS men ran over and the singing suddenly stopped. Later, he asked
what had happened. "He was killed," he was told.
Some Jews
became atheists as a result of the Holocaust. "Where was God?" they
said. Unfortunately, they had the wrong question. The correct question
was not "Where was God?" but "Where was man?"
Antisemitic
incidents in the UK last year are set to be the highest in the past 30
years. In Europe, antisemitism is said to be at its worst since the Nazi
era. In France, eight synagogues were attacked in one week.
People
need to remember that one day everything will be put right. Not a
single thing will be forgotten. Nothing is more certain.
Frieda Roos van Hessen was born into a Jewish family in Amsterdam. They were not practising Jews: Frieda had been to synagogue only once, for her brother's wedding. But they knew they were Jews.
Frieda had a beautiful singing voice, and decided to become a singer. She trained at Amsterdam Conservatoire, and was soon performing to packed houses. She was chosen to sing the lead in the Dutch version of Disney's Snow White. She was a soloist in a performance of Verdi's Requiem for the Dutch royal family.
Then the Germans invaded Holland. As a Jew, Frieda was forbidden to perform for non-Jewish audiences.
One day a car pulled up at the house where they were staying. Her parents were arrested and taken away. They died in Auschwitz.
Frieda hid in the house and was not discovered. That night, she fled for her life. For the next four years, she hid in eight different locations. She escaped Nazi soldiers eight times. Once she was arrested, then set free again in miraculous circumstances. At one time she lived for months in one room.
Then came the news: the war was over. There was dancing in the streets.
After the war, she met a pastor, who sent a German woman to see her. The woman told her stories of Jesus. "I thought you were an intelligent person," said Frieda. "How can you believe all this nonsense?"
The woman asked her to read Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. Alone, she read Isaiah 53 and understood not a word. She began to read Psalm 22 and came to the verse which says "they pierced my hands and my feet." She let out a yell. "That's Jesus!" she said. She went back to Isaiah 53. She understood every word. "How could I have lived all these years without this?" she said. "It was like coming out of a dark hole into the light."
She was converted instantly through reading the Old Testament.
Frieda, who lives today in the United States, is now 99 years old, and still active. Her aim: to show the power of the love of Jesus.
Next Tuesday is not only the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, but also Holocaust Remembrance Day. You can read about it here and here.
You can see Frieda's testimony, complete with photographs and recordings, here.
