NICKY'S FAMILY - THE STORY OF THE BRITISH SCHINDLER

In 1938, twenty-nine-year-old Sir Nicholas Winton was preparing to take a vacation when he received a call from a friend who told him that he was leaving for Prague and needed his help. Winton didn't hesitate and changed his plans. In Prague, he learned about the refugees fleeing Hitler's army and about the many children who were in danger of losing their lives. Winton decided to take action and by September 1939, he managed to arrange visas and admission to British families for nearly 700 Central European mostly Jewish children as well as he organised a series of "kindertransports" in the months just before the outbreak of World War II. After the War, he returned to his private life and never mentioned this incident. Fifty years later, his wife found a scrapbook full of documents and transport plans....

Today, 102-year-old Sir Nicholas Winton is unbelievably active and still engaged in charity work. He is surrounded by his children, his grandchildren, and of course, all of his rescued "children" who today represent almost 6,000 people.

This film enhances the original story with a number of dramatic reenactments narrated by the rescued children and Sir Winton himself, rare archival footage and interviews with some of today's most influential personalities.

Joe Schlesinger, a CBC reporter and one of the rescued children, is the guide in the film who presents not only how Winton's act changed his life, but also how it continues to influence the lives of thousands of others worldwide.

As the young generation, inspired by Winton's story, tries to cope with present-day problems and actively tries to help make the world a better place, some of the children become "present-day Wintons" themselves.

Sir Winton, who is now 101, was in Prague to attend the premiere late Thursday.

He received a standing ovation when he was taken to the stage in a wheelchair after an earlier screening for school children.

"I hope it's fascinating for young people because it gives an indication to the future. I don't think it helps looking back to the past," Sir Nicholas Winton said.

Joining him on the stage, Premysl Sobotka, deputy speaker of Czech Parliament's upper house, the Senate, handed a nomination of Winton for the Nobel Peace Prize to Norway's ambassador to Prague, Jensen Eikaas, .

Sobotka's office said hundreds of thousands of people signed the nomination.

Eikaas said what Sir Nicholas Winton did "does embodies all values of the peace prize."

In one of the film's most moving moments, a mother who was undecided what to do, took her daughter out of the train through a window — then returned her to the train when it began moving.

"She had a second to decide," Minac said. "It's a true story."

Minac said he and his team managed to trace 261 of the rescued children.

"What (Sir Nicholas Winton) did is something extraordinary," said Zuzana Maresova, who was one of those children.

Sir Nicholas Winton's story did not emerge until 1988 when his wife found correspondence referring to the prewar events. In 2002, British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised him as "Britain's Schindler," after the German businessman Oskar Schindler, who also saved Jewish lives during the war.

An end-credits title notes that only 261 of the 669 rescued children have made themselves known.

Category:

Film & Animation

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• NICKY's
• FAMILY
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[bubbledick]

What a wonderful human being x