Awards
International Emmy Awards 2002
Best Documentary
Trilobit Prize 2002
Czech Republic
Slovak Film Critic's Prize IGRIC 2002
A gripping documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized eight transports (one airplane and seven trains) to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain, and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988.
Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker in London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1939. He quietly but decisively got down to the business of saving lives. We learn how only two countries, Sweden and Britain, answered his call to harbour the young refugees; how documents had to be forged ("We didn't bring anybody in illegally, we just, er, speeded up the process a little") and how once foster parents signed for the children on delivery that was the last he saw of them. "You had to treat it like a business," says Winton.
Journalist and presenter Joe Schlesinger, a rescued child himself, describes Winton as a man of "ordinary human decency". He has also become a national hero in Prague and in Britain and his good work ripples through the lives of many.
"GOOD DEEDS RECALLED; BRITISH 'SCHINDLER' HONORED"
The Jewish Advocate, August 2007
The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070
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