Saving the children from the Holocaust | 60 Minutes Archive

60 minutes rewind now an extraordinary story from  the second world war the humanitarian story that   didn't come to light for decades it concerns a  young londoner named nicholas winton who went   to prague and ended up saving the lives of 669  children mostly jews from almost certain death   as we first reported last april his story begins  at the end of 1938 with europe on the brink of war   in germany violence against jews was escalating   and the infamous munich agreement paved the  way for hitler's armies to march unopposed   into czechoslovakia in london nicholas winton  had been following events and knew that refugees   fleeing the nazis were in dire straits he went  to czechoslovakia to see if there was anything   he could do to help what's strange is that for  almost 50 years he hardly told anyone about what   he'd accomplished and for 50 years the children  knew nothing about who had saved them or how we begin on october 1st 1938 nazi troops marched  into the sudeikman the german-speaking region   of czechoslovakia prague the czech capital was  flooded with desperate people trying to escape   a fortunate few were able to send their children  abroad these parents mostly check jews sensed war   was coming and wanted to get their children out  by chance a cameraman filmed a man holding a boy   a 29 year old londoner his name nicholas winton  all i knew was that the people that i met   couldn't get out and they were looking of  ways of at least getting their children out   nicholas winton is one of the few people  who can bear witness to those days because   he's 105 years old he told us he went to prague  to see if he might be able to save some people   but what made you think you could do it i work  on the motto that if something's not impossible   there must be a way of doing it back in london  winton was a successful stockbroker living   the good life with a passion for sports  but he was deeply concerned about news   reports from czechoslovakia of german  persecution i went out into the camps   where the people who had been displaced  were put and it was winter and it was cold   immigration wasn't an option the world's doors  were closed to the refugees conditions in the   camps were brutal for the 150 000 people trapped  there especially for the children and no one   focused on them until nicholas winton but what  did he do we went to jerusalem to yad vashem   israel's memorial to the victims of the holocaust  and asked dr david silverclang a senior historian   there winton went set up shop in a hotel in the  center of the old city in prague and began looking   into how can i organize getting some of these  refugees particularly the children out of here   what kind of experience did he have to  qualify him for this immense bureaucratic task   none winton set up a small organization with one  aim to get as many kids out as fast as possible   people started coming to him in increasing numbers  he didn't have time in the day to meet them all   he'd work till two in the morning get up  early in the morning to meet the next people   as more and more coming saying take my child take  my child by the time he returned to london he   had a list of hundreds of children and set out to  convince british authorities to take him seriously   he did it by taking stationery from an established  refugee organization adding children's section and   making himself chairman so that eventually they  had to adopt me so in fact you managed to do what   you did through a little deception a little  smoke and mirrors yes to a certain extent yes   it required quite a bit of ingenuity no it  just acquired a printing press to get the   new paper printed the children's section  operated from a tiny office in central london   winton's mother was in charge the staff were  all volunteers during the day winton worked   as a stock broker evenings he wrestled with the  british bureaucracy did you approach any other   countries to take some of the children yeah  americans but the americans wouldn't take any   which was a pity we could have got a lot more out  winton had written president roosevelt asking the   u.s to take in more children a minor official  at the u.s embassy in london wrote back the us   was unable to help britain agreed to accept the  children but only if winton found families willing   to take them in so he circulated the children's  pictures to advertise them but even after a family   chose a child british authorities were slow in  issuing travel documents so winston started having   them forged he also spread some money around took  a bit of blackmail on my part you're indulging   in blackmail and forgery to get the children  out i've never heard it put like that before but you seem to be enjoying it  it worked that's the main thing   the first 20 children left  prague on march 14 1939. the next day german troops occupied prague  and the rest of czechoslovakia hitler rode   through the streets triumphant hugo maisel was  10 years old do you remember the germans coming   into czechoslovakia not only do i remember i  personally saw hitler standing up in the car   and the children were expected to say hi hitler  and so forth i remember as if yesterday it wasn't   long before violence against jews property  confiscations and forced labor that began in   the sudetenland spread throughout czechoslovakia  but the nazis allowed winton's trains to leave   in keeping with their policy to cleanse europe  of jews hugo meisel's parents decided it was   time to put him and his brother on one of the  trains i remember that they told us that we were   going to england maybe two or three months it  would be a holiday for us and that they would   join us very shortly then you believed them  absolutely were your parents emotional when   they said goodbye to you no i re i i i've asked  myself that question many times how my parents had the strength i'm sorry it never occurred to me that what they were  saying to us was not true in other words   that they realized that they they would not  be joining us within a short period of time   over the spring and summer of 1939 seven trains  carried over 600 children through the heart of   nazi germany to holland where they took a ferry  to the english coast from there they caught a   train to london an eighth train carrying 250 more  was scheduled to leave prague on september 1st   but that's the day the war began they were all  at the station even on the train waiting to go   and war was declared so the train never left never  heard really what happened to all those children   but there's reason to suspect that not many  of them survived i think that's true yes two   years after that last train the nazis  began implementing the final solution   their plan to slaughter all the jews  of europe czech jews were rounded up   and shipped to teresanstadt an old military  garrison town about an hour north of prague   their first stop on the road to annihilation  the story will continue after this these tracks were the exit from teresa stott the  only exit the tracks led east the trains were   called polish transports destination auschwitz  some 90 000 people took that one-way ride among   them almost all the children sir nicholas wasn't  able to get out in time their parents and the   parents of the children already in england after  the war you went back to czechoslovakia was there   one instant where you accepted the fact that your  parents were dead when films were being shown of people walking in concentration camps   auschwitz and so forth there's so many shots  being taken by the germans and and so forth never stop looking the name of every czech jew murdered in  the holocaust is painted on the walls of   prague's pinka synagogue over seventy  seven thousand three hundred names   including arnoshka and pavlo maisel hugo's parents   and nicholas winton during the war he volunteered  for an ambulance unit for the red cross then   trained pilots for the royal air force he got  married raised a family earned a comfortable   living for 50 years he told hardly anyone what  he had done i didn't really keep it secret i   just didn't talk about it all this time you're  in england then you go back to czechoslovakia   then you go to israel you still had no idea  how your departure from czechoslovakia had been   organized absolutely no idea and you learned  that by seeing it on television that's right   in 1988 the bbc learned about wynton's story and  invited him to be part of a program he had no idea   that the people sitting around him were  people he had saved can i ask is there   anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life  to nicholas winton if so could you stand up please mr winter would you like to turn around on behalf of all of them  thank you very much indeed i suppose it was the most emotional moment  of my life suddenly being confronted with all   these children who weren't by any means children  anymore no they weren't and for the first time   they looked at you and knew that you  were the reason that they were alive true i wore this around my neck and this  is the actual pass that we were given   to come to england and i'm another  of the children that you saved lady milliner grenfell baines describes winton  as one of the most modest people she's ever met   why do you think he didn't say anything for 50  years i think it was in his nature he really   felt that he'd done all he could and having got  those children settled he felt being there done   that my job's done i've got other things to do  other things for the last 50 years winton's been   helping mentally handicapped people and building  homes for the elderly we've just opened our   second old people's home and it's full and it's  doing very well and there are plenty of old people   like me to go in but you're not there you're at  home oh i'd hate to go into one of my own homes don't print that sir nicholas winton in 2003 winton was knighted  and became sir nicholas winton in the czech   republic he's become a national hero he was  celebrated in a documentary called nikki's family   but he isn't really comfortable with all  the adulation i'm not interested in the past   i think there's too much emphasis nowadays on  the past and what has happened and nobody is   concentrating on the present and the future in  1939 nicholas winton used a two-week vacation   to go to prague and ended up saving the lives  of 669 children in the decades since of course   the children had children who then had children  and so on and the numbers multiplied you want   to summarize it in one sentence a guy takes a  two-week vacation and ends up with 15 000 children   yeah yes it's a pretty good story it's a great  story they've got children and grandchildren and   great-grandchildren and none of them would be here  if it hadn't been for cerneck that's right yeah terrible responsibilities you

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 675,334

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, holocaust, nazi germany, world war II

Id: AKe0SMPzIVQ

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 27 2022