Nicholas Winton awarded Czech Republic’s highest state honour for saving 669 Czech children

LONDON: British Schindler Nicholas Winton was on Tuesday awarded the Czech Republic’s highest state honour.
The 105-year-old was given the Order of the White Lion at a ceremony at Prague Castle.
Winton is known to have saved 669 Czech children, mostly Jews from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the nine months before war broke out in 1939.
The story became known to the public in 1988 after his wife discovered a scrapbook.
In 2003 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Humanity for this work.
Winton was 29 years old when he arranged trains to take the children out of occupied Czechoslovakia and for foster families to meet them in London.
While receiving the award, he said he was grateful to the British people who gave the children homes.
He said “I want to thank you all for this enormous expression of thanks for something which happened to me nearly 100 years ago and a 100 years is a heck of a long time. I am delighted that so many of the children are still about and are here to thank me. I thank the British people for making room for them to accept them and of course the enormous help given by so many of the Czechs who were at that time doing what they could to fight the Germans and to try to get the children out”.
“I knew better than most, and certainly better than the politicians, what was going on in Germany. We had staying with us people who were refugees from Germany at that time. Some who knew they were in danger of their lives,” he added. But he said he was not afraid to help “There was no personal fear involved”.
In a highly poignant moment on Tuesday, the Czech defence ministry sent a special plane to take Sir Nicholas to Prague. There he met a few of the children he had rescued who are now in their late 70s or 80s.