One last trip for Winton Train

On Sept. 1, 1939, the train never left the station.

But, in 2009, it did, and the journey paid tribute to those who didn't make it, those who did and, most of all, the man responsible, Nicholas Winton.

Winton organized the shuttling of 669 mostly Jewish Czechoslovak children to safety in the United Kingdom and Sweden in the months preceding World War II. Eight "Winton Trains" traveled out of Prague between March and August 1939. Another train with 250 children was scheduled to depart in September, but, with the onset of war, the trip never occurred. Of those children, 247 later died in concentration camps.

"It's wonderful to see you all after 70 years," said Winton, now 100, upon personally greeting the train at London's Liverpool Station Sept. 4, according to the BBC. "Don't leave it quite so long until we meet here again."

Winton first traveled to Czechoslovakia as a 29-year-old stockbroker in December 1938. A year earlier, he had been in Berlin and had taken note of the rhetoric coming from German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. In the meantime, Germany had annexed Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. As Jewish refugees fled towards Prague, Winton grew concerned for their future - and, in particular, the children.

Winton first had to lobby the British Foreign Ministry to allow the children to emigrate.

"They were infuriating," Winton told The Prague Post in 2007. "They kept asking me, 'What's your rush?' "

Finally, authorities conceded, and Winton arranged appropriate paperwork, found families to take in each child and cover a ?50 fee - a major sum in 1939.

"I simply saw a need and filled it," Winton said.

His work more than 70 years ago went largely unnoticed until about 20 years ago. A 2001 film by Slovak director Matěj Mináč brought him much due acknowledgment, and, in 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

On this latest journey, 27 survivors from the original trains made the trip. Offspring from the rescued now number more than 5,000. A statue of Winton and two children was unveiled on Prague's Hlavní nádraží platform. One of the models for the statue was the granddaughter of a woman saved by a Winton Train.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com