Sir Nicholas Winton dies [age 106]
- Simon. B
- Jul 2, 2015
- 1 min read
Sir Nicholas George Winton, known as the “the British Oskar Schindler”, passed away on the 1st of July 2015 in the early hours of the morning due to respiratory failure at the age of 106 years. Born Nicholas George Wertheim on May 19th 1909 in Hampstead, London to Barbara and Rudolph Wertheim, he spent a significant portion of his early training and career working in various financial institutions before in 1938 when Martin Blake (a close friend and instructional master at the Westminster School of London) asked him to help with relief efforts regarding Jewish refugees fleeing from an encroaching Nazi expansion and increasingly harsher Reich policies, deportations and anti-semitism. He readily took to this humanitarian position by establishing an organisation to provide aid for the children of families fleeing the Nazi regime, personally ensuring sponsorship and lodging for hundreds of children through liaison with sports clubs and families while also addressing the House of Commons to increase the access of their Kindertransport program. This effort led to the rescue of 669 children in all from the Nazi regime, many of whom lost parents to concentration camps. He is survived by both his children Nick and Barbara Winton, as well as many of the refugees he saved, their children, their children's children and the thousand more generations to come.
