SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta v Opavě

BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE

Opava 2021 Monika Hilzensauer

SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta

Monika Hilzensauer Obor: Angličtina pro školskou praxi

Media Reception of ’s Legacy in Great Britain and the

Bakalářská práce

Opava 2021 Vedoucí bakalářské práce: Mgr. Marie Crhová, Ph.D., MA

Abstract This bachelor thesis deals with the media image of Nicholas Winton’s rescue operation in which he managed to save hundreds of Czechoslovak children. Predominantly from Jewish families. The introductory part describes the life of Nicholas Winton and events before the outbreak of World War II. The thesis concentrates on the how the story was represented in the media and reflects responses not only in Great Britain but also in the Czech Republic. The Slovak director Matěj Mináč, with whom an interview was conducted especially for this thesis, is a noteworthy source of information. The thesis monitors documentary and features films in Czech and British cinematography trying to find out which of those countries could have a bigger influence on “Nicolas Winton’s legacy’s presentation.“

Key words: Sir Nicholas Winton, media, rescue operation, Great Britain, Czech Republic

Abstrakt Bakalářská práce pojednává o mediálním obrazu záchranné akce Nicholase Wintona, při které se podařilo zachránit stovky československých dětí, převážně z židovských rodin. Úvodní část popisuje život Nicholase Wintonova a události před vypuknutím druhé světové války. Dále se práce soustřeďuje, jakým způsobem byl příběh mediálně prezentován a reflektuje ohlasy nejen ve Velké Británii, ale také v České republice. Neobvyklým zdrojem informací je rozhovor, poskytnut výhradně pro tuto práci, se slovenským režisérem Matějem Mináčem. Práce mapuje dokumentární a hranou tvorbu v české a britské kinematografii ve snaze srovnat, která z těchto zemí mohla mít větší vliv na prezentaci odkazu Nicholase Wintona.

Klíčová slova: Sir Nicholas Winton, média, záchranná akce, Velká Británie, Česká republika

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Marie Crhová, Ph.D., MA for her guidence, feedback, and comments throughout the whole process of writing this thesis.

Contents Introduction …………………………………….………………………………………1 1 Sir Nicholas Winton …………………….……………………………………………2 1.1 The British - Nicholas Winton …………….………………………2 1.2 His Predecessors and Fellow Workers……….………….…………………………...5 1.3 Dark Clouds over Europe …………...……….………………………………………7 1.4 An Act of Kindness ………………………..…………………………………………9 1.5. Winton’s honours …………..……………….……………………………………..12

2 ………………...…………………………………………………..15 2.1 That’s Life! ………………...………………………………….……………………15 2.2 Years of Fame ………...………………………………………………………… 17 2.3 Winton’ charity work ……...……………………………………………………….19

3 Czech Republic ………………..…………………….………………………………21 3.1 Becoming Czech Hero ……...…………………………………………………… 21 3.2 Matěj Mináč ……………..…………………………………………………………22 3.3 Winton’s Czech Family …….…………………….………………………………...24

4 Comparisons …………………...……………………………………………………27 Conclusion ………………………………………………….…………………………29 Bibliography ……………………………………….………………………………….31 Picture Appendix ...... 33

1

Introduction

“If something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it,” Sir Nicholas Winton

The quoted statement was the favourite motto of Sir Nicholas Winton, the leader of the rescue operation of saving Jewish children from in 1939. The largely still unknown story, shocking to many people, especially those who had no idea how they had come to live in Great Britain. Those “children”, who, at the time of revealing the story, had grown up and started their own families, are still looking for the answers. Luckily the main piece of this puzzle - Nicholas Winton was still alive, in a very good condition and he was able to share this story with a few people and some of them decided to spread this good deed to the rest of the world. The task of this thesis is to describe and contrast the reception of Nicholas Winton’s legacy in Great Britain and the Czech Republic through the lens of the media. I analyse documentary films and feature films about Sir Nicholas Winton in the two countries. This thesis consists of four main chapters. The first chapter is dedicated to Nicholas Winton’s life, the main inspiration for me is the book of Winton’s daughter Barbara. I also describe historic events before the outbreak of World War II with the help of a book called Europe: A History written by Norman Davies, a famous British historian. The second chapter deals with the discovery of the story and focuses on TV show called That’s Life! and documentary movies in Great Britain. In the third chapter I take a closer look at Czech documentaries, and features movies. I was very lucky to get in touch with Matěj Mináč, who I have interviewed. In this chat he revealed why he did choose the Nicholas Winton’s story. Finally, I present a result of my research in which I compare the results from the media environment - press and cinematography in Great Britain and the Czech Republic. Remarkable component of the thesis is also an appendix. This appendix includes a selection of photos from the family album, photos of Nicholas Winton with “his children”, and pictures of Winton’s memorials in , , and Washington. Those pictures show some important moments in Winton’s life and I also want to show some memorials dedicated to him. 2

1 Sir Nicholas Winton

This chapter aims to clarify basic information about Sir Nicholas Winton and also describe the situation before the World War II in Czechoslovakia. I will try to approximate thoughts of Sir Nicholas Winton before and during the rescue operation.

1.1. The British Oskar Schindler - Nicholas Winton

How do many people know the story about Oskar Schindler? Probably most of us at least heard about him or saw the movie Schindler’s list filmed by Steven Spielberg. However do you know the “British Schindler”? There is one fascinating a story about a young British banker who is an example of kindness and his willingness to help saved hundreds of Czechoslovak children. His name is Nicholas Winton and in 1939 he, together with some other people, organised trains from Prague to London. They were not just ordinary trains. For some people those trains meant a hope, because only children were aloud to travel in those trains. In this chapter I will have a look at important facts about Sir Nicholas Winton. Actually his real name was Nicholas George Wertheim and was born on 19 May 1909 in Hampstead, London to Jewish parents as the middle-born of their three children. His parents were German who had emigrated to Britain in 19th century.1 During the First World War, the anti-German moods were also felt in Great Britain, so the whole family changed their surname to a more anglicised one - Winton. In his daughter’s book, Nicholas Winton explained the circumstances surrounding the change of their family name: “We became Winton when Chamberlain came back and made his speech and said ‘peace in our time’.This triggered us at last to change our name. We had had a family conference when problems with Germany were brewing, that is my mother, brother Robert, sister Lottie and myself. We discussed our family going through a second world war with a German-Jewish name, whereas we were in fact British and

1 Stephen Bates, “Sir Nicholas Winton Obituary,“ , , 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/01/sir-nicholas-winton 3

brought up as Christians. Up to then it had always been decided that it seemed an almost cowardly to do to change one’s name.”2 The Winton’s were not a practicing Jewish family, however they socialised with the Jewish community and had a lot of Jewish friends. With the political situation, when on one hand started to chase Jews and on the other hand it was not popular to be German after World War I, the Winton family decided to convert and become Christians. He believed in God until his late twenties but after hearing of Nazi cruelty, the seeds of doubt were sown. At the beginning of the World War II he saw how British and also German priests blessed their troops before going into battle, then he realised that the same God cannot be on both sides and that was the last straw in the complete loss of faith and became an agnostic. When his daughter Barbara asked him what he would like the biography to say about him, he said: “I think it should show my history with religion - from Jewish to Christian to agnostic, and the fact that I came to believe through my life what is important is that we live by the common ethics of all religions - kindness, decency, love, respect and honour for others - and not worry about the aspects within religion that divide us.”3 His family was a tight-knit and he was very close his mother. When Nicholas, also known as Nicky, was fourteen, he asked his parents to send him to Stowe, a new public school that had just opened in 1923. When he finished the school, he moved to Germany, in worked at Behrens Bank and followed by Wasserman Bank in Berlin, for couple of years to practice his financial skills, get some experience in the banking sector and also enjoy a youthful life. In 1931 Nicholas Winton moved to France, where he worked for the Banque Nationale de Crédit in Paris and afterwards, he moved back to London. When he came back to London, he became a broker at The and he actually stayed in financial area and business his whole professional career. Outside of work Nicholas Winton lived an ordinary life, enjoyed time with his family and friends until the day when he got a phone call from his friend Martin Blake and instead of going on holiday to , he flew to Prague. Nicholas Winton spent about one month in Prague, he had to leave because his employer urged him to return

2 Barbara Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton (Troubadour Publishing, 2014), 101 – 102, Kindle. 3 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 271. 4

back to his office, however he continued helping to save the children from London. When the war was declared Nicholas Winton was in London and immediately he wanted to show his disapproval of this war. As a consequence he became an Air Raid Warden in Hampstead, London, and later joined The Red Cross and worked there as a driver. Nicholas Winton still wanted to do more and joined (R.A.F.) and explained as a reason: “You can’t keep out forever. Eventually you get dragged in and there are more important things that your conscience. You want to do something for for country as well. It is all a long time ago.”4 Nicholas Winton could not fly combat aircraft thanks to his poor eyesight and so he became a flying instructor and at the end of the war he was the second in command and travelled with the R.A.F. exhibition through war-torn cities, including Prague. A few years after the end of World War II., in 1947, Nicholas Winton started to work for The International Refugee Organization in Geneva and accepted a job offer, which most of the people would refuse, he was a member of the team in charge of trying of find original owners of Nazi loot, like watches, rings, art and gems, gold tooth filling, etc. When Nicholas Winton returned to his memories, he conceded that this job will remain in his mind forever because after many and many years he was still horrified that was a real event.5 When Nicholas Winton completed this mission, he started to work in The International Bank in Paris and there he met his fateful girl. In 1948 Nicholas Winton married a Danish lady Grete Gjelstrup and together they moved back to England. They had three children, Barbara, Nick and Robin. It seemed they could not be happier but it was not true. The youngest son Robin was born with Down’s syndrome and died at the age of six. Nicholas Winton retired when he was fifty-eight years old and in his retirement he was still a very busy man, loved travelling and he had a lot of hobbies such as gardening, travelling and working for charity. He devoted plenty of his time and energy to a cooperation with charities, especially Abbeyfield, Mencap and Rotary Club. Nicholas Winton started to have some minor health problems but he was still in a good condition. His unexpected death was a shock to everyone. Nicholas Winton died peacefully in his sleep at remarkable age 106. This day remains special for many people for another reason.

4 William R. Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938-1939 (Troubadour Publishing Ltd., 2010), 55, Kindle. 5 Věra Gissing and Muriel Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, trans. Alena Maxová. Praha: X-Egem, 2002), 51. 5

It is the anniversary of the departure of the train, from Central Station in Prague in 1939 with largest number of children on the board, 241.6

1.2 His predecessors and Fellow Workers

Nicholas Winton could not manage to do the whole rescue action just by himself. There were many people who played an important part in the whole process. For this thesis I chose the three people, who I believe were the driving wheels for upcoming events. They are Doreen Warriner, Martin Blake and . There was the only female member of the rescue team and her name was Doreen Warriner and was born on March 16, 1904 in Warwickshire, Great Britain. She was enormously intelligent and her academic career was very successful, achieving Ph.D in 1931. She also had very strong moral sense and probably crucial to her fate. Doreen Warriner instead of travelling to The West Indies to study economic conditions, she flew to Prague on October 13, 1938 As she later wrote about her feelings when she came to Prague, “I had no idea at all what to do, only a desperate wish to do something.”7 In her pocket could be found around 450 British pounds however out there were some 200,000 despairing indigent people. At the end of November 1938 Doreen Warriner became the official representative of The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC), it was a consensual organisation consisting of the major aid groups, such as the Labour Party, The News Chronicle, and the Quakers. It was Christmas time in 1938 that the four other partakers of the Prague refugee story appeared. They worked closely together, tried to get the basic necessities such as food, warm clothes, blankets and mainly money so they could pay for travel permits, for trains, to bribe Gestapo.8 Doreen Warriner has experienced many terrible situations and she described the psychology Gestapo: “On that night at the Wilson station their technique was displayed. There is no question of justice or mercy…..they came to terrorise, to reduce everyone to a state of helplessness and fear. There is no system, only boiling

6 Nick Higham, “Holocaust ´hero´ Sir Nicholas Winton dies aged 106, BBC News, last modified July 1, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-33350880. 7 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938-1939, 3. 8 Gestapo was the official secret police of and in Germany-occupied countries 6

cauldron into which every now and again a certain quantity of bones and blood must be thrown; it doesn’t matter whose, but it does matter that those are still free should see and tremble. All the dramatic effects were deliberate - the searching glare at my passport, the shunting of the train and so on. It gets on one’s nerves and in meant to do. Because behind all the theatricality there is the reality; the concentration camps are filling, people do not return…”9 The situation in Prague was beginning to be critical for people who tried to help in any way and Doreen Warriner was in real danger of arrest by Gestapo and had to leave immediately. Her last day in Prague was April 23, 1939 and four and half months later the war was declared. Back in England Doreen Warriner started to work at Ministry of Economic Warfare in London and later on she became a professor in the School of Slavonic an East European Studies. She died on December 17, 1972. The person who invited Nicholas Winton to Prague was Martin Blake, they were close friends. There is not much information about him and the public press did not pay a lot of attention to him. We know very little about him, for example, that he worked as a school principal at Westminster school and he was very interested in politics. Martin Blake was left-oriented and had a very good acquaintances in the Labour Party that helped Winton get to know leading figures in this political party.10 Another member they could rely on was Trevor Chadwick born on April 22, 1907 in England. He worked as a teacher when he first time flew to Prague to pick up two young boys and bring them to England. This time he met Doreen Warriner and shortly thereafter also Nicholas Winton, who remembered: “A young Englishman met me in my hotel one day. Trevor Chadwick had heard about the plight of the refugees and offered to throw up his job as a teacher and come out to help. Two days after our meeting he flew back to England with two refugee boys…. The next day he was back in Prague and from then on worked with me for about 18 hours a day until we both returned to England. Later, when we had got things moving in London and I needed someone to look after the Prague end, I took up Trevor’s offer.”11 When Nicholas Winton left Prague, it was Trevor Chadwick who took care of the paperwork and all issues surrounding the transports. There is not exact information about

9 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938 – 1939, 27-28. 10 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938 – 1939, 39. 11 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938 – 1939, 70. 7

the time when Trevor Chadwick left Prague but it is assumed that it was in June 1939 and back in London he was in touch with Nicholas Winton, they continued to work together on the rescue operation. Soon after the war broke out Trevor Chadwick joined the Royal Navy Reserve and after some months he enlisted to the Royal Air Force. In 1943 Trevor Chadwick left the army after being diagnosed with an obsessional psychoneurosis following a car accident and later mentioned how shocking the situation was for him seeing halls full of desperate refugees, plenty of lost and hungry children and he said to himself that he has to try his best to help as many of them as he can.12 There were countless difficult and nervously tense situation which probably effected his mental health. Trevor Chadwick settled down in Oslo, Norway, where later on he ,together with some friends, based a small publishing company which became Oslo University Press. He died 23rd of December 1979. There were many other people who helped like Bill Barazetti, Beatrice Wellington, R. J. Stopford, Růžena Ehrmann, Sir Walter Leyton, Margaret Leyton, Barbara Winton. Many organisations also got involved in the rescue operation like The Quakers, The Jewish Refugee Committee, The Inter-Aid Committee, The Save the Children Fund, Czech Refugee Trust Fund, and many more.13 All those people and organisations were fascinating for their determination to help. They certainly deserved much more pages in my thesis and the least I can do is to mention them and showed my respect for them.

1.3 Dark Clouds over Europe

The book Europe: A history by Norman Davies covers Czechoslovakia before the World War II. like this: “Czechoslovakia had a reputation for democracy that was stronger abroad than among the country’s own German, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, and Ruthenian minorities. Exceptionally for the region, it was highly industrialised, it had a

12 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938 – 1939, 71. 13 Nicky´s family. Directed by Matěj Mináč. BONTONFILM a.s., 2011. 8

genuine communist movement, and it looked to Russia for moral support. During the long presidency of the great T. G. Masaryk, who retired in 1935, it held together.”14 The situation in Europe in 1938 did not look good as Adolf Hitler had a power in his hands and most of the European countries were afraid of war. Norman Davies then in his book describes in detail how the Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha with meekness accepted the fact that his country is falling apart.15 People quickly realised that Austria and the Sudetenland would not be enough for Hitler. Nicholas Winton was interested in the political situation in Europe and thought Adolf Hitler was a reincarnated evil, however he hoped that Germans were intelligent enough to discover his true face and intention. He said: “If Hitler had appeared on Throgmorton street in the late 1930s, he would have been welcomed just as he had been welcomed by the people in Vienna at Anschluss.“16 When Neville Chamberlain came back from his first visit in Germany and waved a piece of paper saying Peace for our time, people believed him that the war situation was resolved. Unfortunately “”, also called the Night of Broken Glass took place just five weeks later. The assassination of the Legation Secretary; Ernst von Rath at the German Embassy in Paris on November 7, 1938 became an excuse for unleashing violence. In this pogrom Germans tried to destroy everything of Jewish origin. They plundered and burned the shops and businesses, burned the synagogues, around one hundred Jews were killed and approximately thirty thousand were taken to concentration camps. William Chadwick states in his book: “Prague was still one of the most most beautiful capitals in Europe, but it was clear to Doreen Warriner and almost everyone else, except Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, that the city, indeed the whole country, and probably the continent itself were teetering on the edge of a huge disaster.”17 He was still convinced that Adolf Hitler is a fair man and a politician. Still in 1938 he thought of Hitler in this way: “I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied on.”18 How wrong he was…

14 Norman Davies, Europe: A history (First published by Oxford University Press, 1996), 2516, Ebook. 15 Davies, Europe: A History, 2555. 16 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 35. 17 Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugee 1938 – 1939, 1. 18 Davies, Europe: A history, 2540. Ebook. 9

March 15, 1939 is known as the day when the darkest period of Czech history had began. In the evening of that day Adolf Hitler arrived triumphantly to Prague Castle without a shot being fired, where castle guards took turns members of the SS units.19 The occupation lasted exactly six years, one month and nineteen days, Nuremberg Laws came into force immediately and Czechoslovakia turned into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. When the German troops were already in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania, Neville Chamberlain finally admitted two important facts: Europe is in trouble and Adolf Hitler is not a man of his word. One of Winton’s rescued children Věra Gissing, had thought back in her book Pearls of Childhood: “German armoured cars, motorcycles and tanks followed by line upon line of high-booted, marching soldiers were moving along the street, filling our square. And as the last remnants of hope and liberty were trampled into the slush, the stricken people of our town who lined the pavements bared their heads and with tears in their eyes sang the Czech national anthem ‘Where Is My Home?’. And in my bedroom, our small family group held hands and sang with them; the whole nation cried and sang ‘Where is my home? Where is my home?’ because suddenly our home was no longer ours. The years of occupation had begun.20 The following events are already well known.

1.4 An Act of Kindness

That winter, same as every year, Nicholas Winton had a plan. Go on a skiing holiday in Switzerland with his good friend Martin Blake. But everything changed with just one phone call from Prague. It was Martin Blake himself who asked him to cancel their holiday in Switzerland and urged him to come to Prague for an important meeting. Nicholas Winton arrived in Prague in December 1938 and soon he fitted into a process and saw that the situation with refugees is critical and they knew they had to act very quickly. The two weeks they had was not enough time to do anything, so Nicholas Winton extended his vacation and stayed an extra week and this mission was not over with Winton’s departure back to London. It was nearly nine months of trying to save as many

19 Markéta Bernatt – Reszczyńská, “Když k nám přišli Němci. Začátek německé okupace ve vzpomínkách pamětníků,“ last modified March 15, 2021, https://www.pametnaroda.cz/cs/magazin/specialy/nemecka-okupace-vyhlaseni-protektoratu. 20Věra Gissing, Pearls of Childhood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 28, Internet Archive. 10

children as possible and secure their home, however at the same time he was still working in the financial sector, so he did not have much free time left for anything else. Nicholas Winton stayed at the Hotel Šroubek and his hotel room also became his office where he often welcomed desperate parents who were afraid about the fate of their children. He later shared his memories and said that his day usually started at six o’clock in the morning and people were already waiting outside of his room. The crying was heard all the time, those parents cried because noone could help them at this moment, or they cried because we said we found the foster-family in England for their child. There is no certainty when or if they will ever see their child again. It was a human catastrophe caused by a marching army.21 In this war conflict there were also other groups of refugees threatened as communists, Catholic, Austrian-German, politically persecuted writers and all of them thought that they must be the first to be saved. But Nicholas Winton and his co-workers had chosen that the most endangered group; children. They created a list of children but it was constantly editing and changing according to the information they got. Even though the situation was not really optimistic, Nicholas Winton experienced a few hilarious moments, one he describes in his notes: “Well, after a hard day’s work…I thought I would go for a little walk. On the main street I got into a crowd of young Czech youths who were walking along shouting. I did not know what it was about but any excitement was good enough for me, so I walked along with them. Not being able to understand the lingo I could naturally not join in the shouting, but at least I helped to swell their ranks. After a little while a great number of police arrived and dispersed the procession. When at last I found myself standing next to another inoffensive looking man I asked him what it had all been about. He told me it was an anti-Jewish procession and the shouting was anti-Jewish slogans. I suppose therefore that I must confess to having taken part in an anti-Jewish demonstration.”22 Nicholas Winton had returned to London with a list of children, their pictures, necessary details about them and a recommendation from Doreen Warriner how to lead the situation of children refugees. Věra Gissing later on wrote in her book Pearl of Childhood: “Back in England, he intensified the search for sponsors and foster-parents , handled all the complex paperwork

21 Gissing and Muriel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 75. 22 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 18 – 19. 11

connected with entry permits and visas and arranged the train transports. His incredible efforts resulted in 664 children escaping Hitler’s clutches. I was one of them…”23 Unfortunately all these organisations like Movement, The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC) were very busy and the bureaucracy was such a long process. As a consequence Nicholas Winton decided to take action into his own hands and on the sheet of paper titled BCRC - Children’s section and his own address as their office, it looked official and no one had suspicions. They were in contact with the Home Office.24 The Home Office was an institution issuing visas for refugees and after a mistake with an uncontrolled issuance of visas for German and Austrian child refugees, this time they did not want to do the same mistake again. They laid down new rules for all child refugees: 1) Each child must have their own application form 2) They must all have a medical certificate 3) Proof that the child is ready for a new home and she/he has a guarantor or a guardian already and this person is willing to look after a new child and send her/him to school until the age of seventeen 4) The guarantor or guardian has to make a deposit of fifty British pounds (the rough equivalent to two thousand five hundred British pounds in today´s money)25 Soon things really started to move and progress. Nicholas Winton had the idea how of to increase the possibility of a child refugee finding new home. Basically he printed a large card with photos of six children with their names and age on each card and like this he presented those children to their potential new families. It was a great success and when the threat of war was very close, Nicholas Winton importuned even more and tried to reach the widest possible public. Appeals went to synagogues, churches, schools and institutions, he wrote to the British press and they were pleasantly surprised how many positive responses they got back, from doctors, teachers, dentists, clergy, architects, and others.26 Religion was still for many people, even in danger of death, one of the most important pillars of their life and they could not imagine that the two religions would be mixed. Some of the orthodox rabbis had visited Nicholas Winton in his office and they expressed

23 Gissing, Pearls of Childhood, 10. 24 Home Office - British Ministry of Interior 25 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 81. 26 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 85. 12

a huge disagreement that Jewish children should be placed in Christian families. Nicholas Winton said about it: “I ignored their objections. From a Jewish point of view, it may have seemed terrible, but on the other hand - the children remained alive! I wanted to save lives, not souls. I said to them, I do my work, and you do yours. If you prefer a dead Jew then converted to another faith, it’s your business.”27 The situation was beginning to become critical, on the list there were still a lot of children waiting to be saved. To speed up the process, Nicholas Winton and his co- workers even forged the necessary documents, as the main goal was still to bring as many children as possible to United Kingdom. The first had successfully left Prague on 14 March 1939 with only twenty children on board, another seven followed and the number of children increased. The ninth train, by then with largest number of children on board (250), was to depart on 1 September 1939 however the war was declared and the Germans stopped issuing any visas. All these children had to get off and most of them vanished. Unfortunately there is a high possibility that they died in some of the concentration camps. But it did not necessarily have to be this way, Nicholas Winton asked other countries for help such as The United States of America or Australia but he received negative answers. He commented: “If America had only agreed to take them too, I could have saved at least 2,000 more.”28

1.5 Winton’s honours

Nicholas Winton received many honours and awards for his dedication to charity work as well as for the rescue operation in Prague. One of the biggest honours Nicholas Winton was awarded with was is a Knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’ Honours List in 2003 for his services to humanity. Winton’s daughter Barbara said in her book, that her father did not feel excited about it very much for one simple reason, he thought his achievements were overestimated compared to others such as Trevor Chadwick and Doreen Warriner. However he guessed it was because he was the only one of them still alive.29

27 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 89. 28 Bates, “Sir Nicholas Winton Obituary.“ 29 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 240. 13

Non-Jewish people who saved Jews during the Holocaust have a chance to receive the appreciation called the Righteous Among the Nations, honoured by . There are three main forms of help by the Righteous Among the Nations: 1) Hiding Jews in the rescuer’s ‘home or on their property 2) Providing false documents and false identities 3) Falsifying and assisting Jews to escape30 Many people asked why Nicholas Winton did not receive the Righteous Among the Nations honour although he deserved it. The main reason is his origin, Nicholas Winton was born as a Jew and this honour is for non-Jewish rescuers. Nicholas Winton received many honours in Great Britain, for example: The Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1983 for his charity for Abbeyfield. In 2003 he received one of the greatest awards he could achieved. Nicholas Winton was knighted for his service to humanity by the British Queen Elizabeth II., in recognition of his work on the Czech Kindertransport and in the same year Nicholas Winton received the Pride of Britain Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2010 named by British Government a British Hero of the Holocaust and in 2013 Nicholas Winton was awarded the Wallenberg Medal and in 2015 the Freedom of the City. The Czech Republic praised Nicholas Winton for his actions as well. He was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk - Fourth Class in 1998, in 2008 he received the Cross of Merit of the Ministry of Defence - Grade I., the Czech government nominated him for Nobel Peace Prize. It is interesting to know that two Czech astronomers, Jana Tichá a Miloš Tichá, named a small planet 19384 Winton. Also in 2014 in a very special ceremony at Prague Castle Nicholas Winton was awarded the highest civilian honour; the by the Czech president Miloš Zeman. Zeman said: “It is a great pleasure to confer this award upon two great personalities of the UK. I am only ashamed it has been awarded so late - but better late than never. Congratulations Sir Winton. This is our highest honour; we cannot do one higher.”31 In both the Czech Republic and Grat Britain, there are school that bear Winton’s name (an elementary school in Kunžak, boys’ day house in Stowe).

30 Yad Vashem, https://www.yadvashem.org/ 31 Emma Howard, “British Schindler honoured for saving 669 children from the Nazis,“ The Guardian, October 28, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/sir-nicholas-winton-british-schindler-order-of-the- white-lion-czech-republic 14

On 1 September 2009 exactly 70 years have passed and on this occasion company called Winton Train despatched a very special train on a route Prague to London, however this time there were no children onboard, being sent into the unknown. For this time were on board adult with their families as well as Nicholas Winton with his family and all knew the final destination and who was waiting for them there. The expedition should be also a honour and a celebration of Nicholas Winton’s 100th birthday. This 1 251 kilometres long journey was full of memories, tears, laughs however for many of “Winton’s children” it was also a very emotive experience. Based on the screening of the movie The Power of Good - Nicholas Winton, the US Congress decided to pass a law that legalised Winton’s act as a heroic act of rescue, which is the highest possible American award.32

32 The Government Publishing Office, September 17, 2007, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2007-09-17/html/CREC-2007-09-17-pt1-PgH10397.htm 15

2 The United Kingdom

In this chapter I refer on a discovery and a presentation of Nicholas Winton’s story in United Kingdom and I focus on the way and the style of how the British media and British film industry processed this story.

2.1 That’s Life!

February 27, 1988 was the day when everything has changed for Nicholas Winton. BBC1 broadcasted a popular magazine-style television series That’s Life! which was hosted by and the show presented hard-hitting investigations with strong stories but also with sign of a satire and an entertainment. On that night the main guest was Nicholas Winton with his story. A lot of sources share a fact that Nicholas Winton kept a secret about the rescue operation for nearly fifty years but it was not really true. He had a scrapbook that he received as a gift from his volunteer assistant Mr. W. M. Loewinsohn in 1939. Mr. Loewinsohn decided to collect all the data, photos, correspondence and put them together as a memento to see what was accomplished and from time to time Nicholas Winton and his wife showed this book to family members, friends and even to write to various Jewish organisations and museums in early and middle of the 1980s to determine whether some of them would show their interest in such a piece but there was not success at all. Nicholas Winton just wanted to find someone who would be interested in this part of history and who would take good care of his scrapbook.33 Things began to move in January 1988 when Winton's aunt died and he was sorting her affairs and had decided to sort out his old papers and documents and put them in order. Then a question arose as what to do with his scrapbook, suddenly someone suggested he could try to speak to the Wiener Library, a London-based repository of archives on the Holocaust and Nazi era. In response, they made contact with Dr. Elizabeth Maxwell, who was just in the middle of organising conference ‘Remembering for the

33 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 4. 16

Future’ in July 1988. And that was the moment when Nicholas Winton had the luck of the draw and finally found the correct person.34 Dr. Maxwell, a historian who did a research history of her husband , a Czech Jew and later also an owner of Mirror Group Newspapers, was the perfect choice as she was interested, also knowledgeable and she felt the urgency which was in the air. She came up with a brilliant idea, to send a letter to all the addresses in the list of the original foster parents of the rescued children, found in the back of the scrapbook. Probably thanks to coincidence on the same day, 27 February 1989, the Sunday Mirror newspaper published a three pages article called ‘The Lost Children’ describing the story of one young British stockbroker who saved many Czechoslovak children just before the outbreak of World War II. The article covered how foster families took care of someone else’s child and showed how some of these children lived in those days. At the end was also an appeal to get in touch if anyone knew that this story is about himself/herself. It was as if a miracle had happened, over 200 positive replies came back. Then Dr. Maxwell made a decision and handed Winton’s scrapbook to Esther Rantzen, the presenter of the show, who had browsed through the book, read passages from letters, showed pictures and family photos and then she finally came to the main part of the book and it was a list of all children rescued from Czechoslovakia in 1939 by Nicholas Winton. In her book, Winton’s daughter Barbara describes the situation in the studio with her own eyes: “What happened that evening in the TV studio was a producer’s delight - an ambush of an unsuspecting innocent. My father had been placed in the front row of the audience as the programme began. Esther Rantzen produced the scrapbook and explained its contents, telling the story about the evacuation of endangered, mainly Jewish, children from Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of war including the facts that nearly all of their family families left behind were murdered by Nazis and that the rescued children had never known how they had come to be saved.”35 To that day Nicholas Winton did not meet any of those children and did not know what is waiting for him in studio. He was seated in the front row surrounded without knowing who is sitting next to him. The first ever rescued children meeting Nicholas Winton were Věra Gissing and Milena Grenfell-Baines. When the presenter introduced

34 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 5. 35 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 1-2. 17

them to each other, it must have been one the most moving moment the television had ever aired. People could see behind the Winton’s thick glasses the tears, he was trying to wipe them quickly because, as we know the British people do not like to show their emotion in public. The presenter Esther Rantzen later made a confession: “That the moment I introduced them was the only time on TV when I had burst into tears and had to stop to recover. If you get real positive emotions on TV it reaches right into viewers’ homes and hearts and this did.”36 That evening was essential and emotional for many people because Nicholas Winton turned out to be the only connecting link to their past. After this episode, the phone kept ringing, so therefore TV producers decided to invite Nicholas Winton back and this time he was accompanied by his wife Grete to support him and again it was very emotional evening. The show presenter Esther Rantzen had reminded viewers of Winton’s story and then asked a question whether anyone in the audience was the saved by Nicholas Winton to stand up. And in a quiet moment about five first rows of people stood up, an extremely powerful experience for everyone involved in this story. For the first time ever people were introduced to the story of Nicholas Winton and without knowing he left a rather significant mark on many people’s lives.

2.2 Years of Fame

After the publication of Nicholas Winton’s story and especially after receiving a knighthood for Services to Humanity, he became an international star. The media was curious about who is the old man with thick glasses on his nose. Invitations came from all over the world, and if his health allowed it, he was very happy to accept these invitations. We must not forget he was around eighty years old when his story saw the light of day. As a huge fan of travelling, this proved to be both pleasant and useful. Nicholas Winton became an honoured guest in many countries. In May 1989 Winton visited Jerusalem and laid his documents in the Yad Vashem archives. In 1991 he visited Prague and met Czechoslovak president Václav Havel who said about him: “The story has such a radiation, emanates an inspiration and shows that good can also be done on

36 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 3. 18

this Earth.”37 Nicholas Winton was given the opportunity to meet many interesting people from different parts of world, such as:, Queen Elizabeth II., Bill Clinton, Václav Havel, Tony Blair and, Madeleine Albright. Tony Blair described his way of perceiving Winton’s story as follows: “I am delighted that the documentary film about you is being shown publicly for the first time in Britain. This film is long-overdue recognition of your extraordinary humanitarian achievement in saving hundreds of Czechoslovak children from death. Your initiative and determination in the months of leading to the outbreak of the Second World War remain an inspiration. The selfless commitment you showed, and steadfast will to ask “What can I do to help?“, and then to act, are examples to us all. That you did it in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds makes what you did all the more remarkable. The people you saved, and their children, many thousands, are a living and heartwarming testament to your courage.”38 The reactions that Nicholas Winton aroused when he came somewhere were very positive and people loved to have him around for his energy, sense of humour and his warmth but he felt best in the circle of his loved ones. However I wanted to know how the British press helped to bring the Winton’s story to as many viewers and readers as possible and to keep his legacy from being forgotten. When I was looking for information on which of the British media represented the story of Nicholas Winton. For the television stations, it was only BBC, other TV stations like ITV or Channel 4 had nothing in their on-line records. My research has shown that virtually every newspaper has published an article about Nicholas Winton. When I look closely, from the tabloids; The Sun and Daily Express and from the broadsheets, it was The Times, The Independent and the Guardian. All of these newspapers are privately owned and are also politically oriented, mostly centre-right or right-wing. The newspaper that published the most articles about Nicholas Winton, which I found, is probably The Guardian. It was a little surprise for me as I thought I will find tens maybe hundreds of articles about Nicholas Winton and I will simply choose the most interesting ones, but there was nothing to choose from. Winton’s daughter Barbara had the same point of view and wrote in her book: “Since its original telling in 1988, which led to the discovery for many of the rescued children about how they came to England in 1939 and then to Nicky’s

37 Matěj Mináč, Sir Nicholas Winton, Jak jej neznáme, own translation (Spolek Nicholase Wintona, 2019), 8, online book, http://wintonfilm.com/winton-jak-jej-nezname.pdf. 38 Mináč, Sir Nicholas Winton, Jak jej neznáme, 12. 19

honouring in Czechoslovakia, not much had been written about it in the British press and he was hardly known about here. The knighthood was to change that, and the publicity following it led to old lost friends and colleagues suddenly rediscovering him, as well as more general recognition by the public.”39

2.3 Winton’s charity work

Nicholas Winton devoted himself to charity before the whole story was even published. so when he retired at the age of fifty-eight, it was clear that he would work even more intensively for his favourite organisations. As I mentioned earlier, he was very closely connected to the Mencap organisation40 and also with the Abbeyfield Society41 and the Rotary Club.42 Nicholas Winton decided to help, in his view, the two most endangered groups, children and the elderly and he certainly took advantage of a situation where his name became known to give these organisations more interest from the British public. The Mencap organisation was his heart’s desire, and the main reason probably being the illness of his youngest son. Nicholas Winton even became a chairman of the local branch. Every time he came to visit, everyone greeted him enthusiastically, he knew them all by name and was very patient and kind.43 Nicholas Winton was member of The Rotary Club for more than forty years and was inducted into the Rotarian Peace Hall of Fame. He was humble and nice and those are exactly the qualities that each Rotarian should have. They support where support is necessary and their range is wide (Promoting Peace, Saving Mothers & Children, Providing Clean Water, Supporting Education, and much more).44

39 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 229-230. 40 Mencap is a UK charity for people with a learning disability or Down’s syndrome, https://www.mencap.org.uk/. 41 Abbeyfield is an English housing charity for elderly people, https://www.abbeyfield.com/. 42 Rotary Club is an international service organisation whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advanced goodwill and peace around the world, https://www.rotary.org/en. 43 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 196. 44 Rotary Club, https://www.rotary.org/en. 20

The Abbeyfield Society has around four hundred houses in seven countries, in Great Britain, over hundred homes and one of them bears his name. Winton House was his pride and joy, he also became a highly regarded expert in emergency care, his presence, advice and sense of humour were an indispensable part of this institution.45 Nicholas Winton considered it important to attend to schools, conferences or some memorial days and talk to people not only about history, about what led him to go to Prague and try to save as many children as possible, but also how important is to care or help other people, to be positive and kind. At the end of the Mináč’s movie called Nicky’s family is footage of the screening and where Nicholas Winton was present and children from around the world. Even descendants of ‘Winton's children' recorded especially for him and represented how they themselves are trying to change the world for better place. We could see Slovak couple helping in Cambodia, young Danish girls sending boxes of clothes to Ecuador, Czech children at school organising a collection of luggages for children in Cambodia or only drawing pictures or baking a cake for elderly people and spending some quality time with them. In these acts we can see the true influence of Nicholas Winton, his actions and activities transcended the borders of many countries, such as Israel, , , France and The United States of America. When Nicholas Winton passed away, his son Nicky said about his father’s legacy: “It’s about encouraging people to make a difference and not waiting for something to be done or waiting for someone else to do it. It’s what he tried to tell people in all his speeches and in the book written by my sister.”46 I think that this could be his message for others, to show them that you do not have to be a famous person, a millionaire or a politician to help others but you have to have a heart in the right place, and a lot of desire and courage.

45 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 195. 46 Higham, “Holocaust ´hero´ Sir Nicholas Winton dies aged 106. 21

3 Czech Republic

3.1 Becoming Czech Hero

One of the survivors of the Terezin camp, Vera Egermayer, said about Nicholas Winton: “Nicky is a national hero here in the Czech Republic. In England you don’t know about him but everywhere else we do. He did a kind act and never told anybody.”47 Czechoslovakia was occupied for many years, first it was part of the Third Reich and its leader was Adolf Hitler, the domination of the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin, followed for forty years. So it is not surprising that stories of people helping others in these difficult times evoke strong emotions even after many years. Nicholas Winton became a very popular person in the Czech Republic when the story was discovered and the Czech nation was enthusiastic when they heard the story for the first time, they had a feeling that they are somehow connected. Current Czech president Miloš Zeman said in writing to Nicholas Winton to award him: “You gave these children the greatest possible gift: the chance to live and be free. You did not think of yourself as a hero but you were conducted by a desire to help those who could not defend themselves, those who were vulnerable. Your life is an example of humanity, selflessness, personal courage and modesty.”48 Every time Nicholas Winton visited the Czech Republic, it happened with great interest from the media and the public and wherever he came, people treated him with respect. In 1991 Nicholas Winton received the invitation from the Jewish community which he accepted and then he and his wife Grete visited Prague for the first time. They stayed at the same hotel where Winton was housed in 1939.49 The Wintons were not ready for such overwhelming interest, journalist asked about the interviews, the cameras followed their every step and almost every politician wanted to meet them. In 2011, the exhibition of Nicholas Winton was launched in Vyšehrad as a tribute to him and continued to other countries such as Israel, New Zealand and Germany. These days, there is another person who has decided to take part in spreading the story and legacy of Nicholas Winton, Petr Sís, a Czech-born American illustrator and writer of children’s

47 Bates, “Sir Nicholas Winton Orbituary.“ 48 Bates, “Sir Nicholas Winton Orbituary.” 49 Winton, If it’s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, 81. 22

book. His new illustrated book for children is currently being published and is called Nicky&Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued (meaning Nicholas Winton and Věra Gissing). The book will be published in many countries such as Great Britain, the United States of America, China, and, of course the Czech Republic and it will bright slightly different view of the events of 1939.50 It is interesting to observe how the Czech public still devotes time to the story of Nicholas Winton and works to ensure that his legacy is not forgotten.

3.2 Matěj Mináč

Matěj Mináč, a son of famous Slovak photographer Zuzana Mináčová and a screenwriter Ján Mináč, is a very popular Slovak film director and screenwriter, who stands behind media coverage of Nicholas Winton’s story around the world. Matěj Mináč primarily deals with the documentary and there starts his professional career as a film director. He became famous mainly for his documents like: The Power of Good - Nicholas Winton, and movies: Nicky’s family and . At the end of the year 1997 he did research of his mother’s history during World War II, for the upcoming movie All My Loved Ones. Soon he found out that this part of his mother’s life is very sad and he wanted to do something positive and like he said himself: “I had a feeling that I need something positive, a ray of light in the dark sea of evil which holocaust presented.”51 While he was trying to find a positive story or an incident, he came across a book Pearl of Childhood by Vera Gissing, who turned out to be one of the Winton’s children, and it all led to Nicholas Winton. Thanks to a translator, Matěj Mináč got Winton’s telephone number and in January 1998 called him. Four weeks later he had traveled to Maidenhead, near London. They talked for hours and found sympathy in each other and Mináč confirmed that during their first meeting he already knew that he would love to make a documentary about this remarkable man, who was already 90 years old but always had an energy to meet and talk to other people.

50 Jan, Dlouhý, “´V USA ho neznají.´Příběh o tichém zachránciWintonovi přiblíží dětem nová kniha Petra Síse,“ iRozhlas, (January 16, 2021), https://www.irozhlas.cz/kultura/literatura/detska-literatura-sir-nicholas-winton-petr-sis-nicky-vera- gissingova_2101161234_ban 51 Mináč, Sir Nicholas Winton jak jej neznáme, 29. 23

For Matěj Mináč it was not as simple as it looked , he had the key figure of this story but the problem was that this figure did not want to talk about it very much because Nicholas Winton found nothing special about the fact that he saved hundreds of children from the certain death. Therefore Mináč risked it and invited Mr. and Mrs. Winton to Prague and hoped that they will follow in the footsteps of Nicholas Winton in 1938 and 1939 together. There was need to open Winton’s heart and also his mouth and share his memories with him. Honestly there was a very high probability of some health problems and Matěj Mináč was afraid of loosing the most important person of the whole story. Slowly, step by step Nicholas Winton started to uncover details of the rescue operation, he remembered how shocked he was by the moment he saw the awful conditions where people had to live and how cold that winter was.52 When I watched the movies All My Loved Ones, Nicky’s family, and The Power of Good - Nicholas Winton, I was sat and had a lot of questions in my mind and no one could give me the answers. It was not until the next search that I came across Matěj Mináč’s e-mail and I plucked up my courage and decided to ask him if he would give me answers to some of my questions. It was my lucky day. He replied shortly after I sent the e-mail, we arranged a telephone conversation and he gave me a chance to ask a few questions. First of all, I wanted to know how he got to Nicholas Winton´s story , and so Matěj Mináč began our short story: “When I was making the movie All My Loved Ones, it is actually my mother’s history. Her family name was Silberstain. They enjoyed their life, believed in what our culture was built on, in the humanity and values in which they lived and could not imagine that it would all collapse and would not leave in time. That is what the movie is about, that, in fact they did not know they were dancing over the chasm and would end badly. These are unusual things, but it is always important to tell the truth. We got into queer topics and situations and the main reason was money. The script and the humour were very much liked by the German co-producer Beta Film. but they had one fundamental condition, they did not want the end where all main characters ended in Auschwitz, it had to have a positive ending. I agreed and started to looking in books about people who survived the war and I got my hands on beautiful book Pearls of Childhood by Věra Gissing and there I saw a short passage about the man who saved her and that

52 Mináč, Sir Nicholas Winton, Jak jej neznáme, 44 – 45. 24

was the Heureka’s moment, it was my light at the end of the tunnel. I thought that Nicholas Winton was dead and it was wonderful surprise to me that he was still alive. So I went to see him.”53 While watching his movies, I wondered if he was worried that somebody will accuse him for just repeating story that had already been published and his answer was no. Because in his opinion there are a lot of stories and themes in the world that have already been processed, such as Titanic, but each director is different and will bring something diverse to his movie. 54 I know that envy is a terrible trait, but I really envied him in a way that he had the opportunity to meet Nicholas Winton, and I wondered how their first meeting went. Mináč described it in several sentences as follows: “It was great, but he did not tell me anything about the rescued operation. I was prepared just like you with list of question, but he kept talking about something else, he had to show me such a garden and play me such an opera. His wife treated me very well, then ho told me two jokes and kicked me out. So it was not a success and I was even little bit upset and decided to invited him to Prague.”55 One of the relevant questions is why no one has ever made a movie about the other members who took part in the rescue operation but Matěj Mináč reassured me that he is already working on it. He said the project would be much more complicated because of obtaining information, testimonies and studying historical events required a lot of time to make the film as authentic as possible.56 The phone call lasted almost an hour and I was pleasantly surprised that the whole conversation took place in a relaxed atmosphere and Mináč shared very interesting information and facts with me and I really appreciated that he found time in his busy schedule.

53 Matěj Mináč, phone call with the author, March 23, 2021. 54 Matěj Mináč, phone call with the author, March 23, 2021. 55 Matěj Mináč, phone call with the author, March 23, 2021. 56 Matěj Mináč, phone call with the author, March 23, 2021. 25

3.3 Winton’s Czech Family

Nicholas Winton was married for fifty-one years and had three children but besides them he has a family which has spread all over the world. In Czechoslovakia Nicholas Winton has made, without knowing what will happen in future, another and somewhat extended family. Essentially Winton’s rescue operation saved a whole generation and his family has around five thousand members. After the war nearly all the saved children were orphans, their parents were killed in some of the German concentration camps. Some of those them stayed in Britain, some returned back to Czechoslovakia, but others emigrated to Australia, Israel or the United States. Obviously not all of his saved children were satisfied, Nicholas Winton remembered how some children were still angry at their parents and could not understand how their parents could send them away to complete strangers. Some of them even criticised their foster-parents, but Nicholas Winton had only one answer for them: “I gave you the opportunity to live.”57 Fortunately, there are only a few of them. Most of the ‘Winton's Children’ are truly happy with their parental decision and the efforts made to save them were not in vain. To fill the emptiness caused by loss of their parents, they accepted Nicholas Winton as their honorary father, most of them remained in touch, became family members and visited on regular basis. It is unbelievable how many of those saved children, despite all the hardships, or perhaps precisely because of that, have achieved extraordinary successes and peaks in their fields in life. When they traveled to London, those children were just innocent victims of a bad time who could not influence what was happening, but they grew up and became a mixture of very interesting people and I would like to mention only few of them. Vera Gissing (born Diamant) was the first ever child introduced to Nicholas Winton in the show That’s Life! and later she narrated how happy and excited she felt and could not believe that finally the day came when Vera Gissing could say warm thank you from the bottom of her heart to her saviour. She became a successful writer and translator.58 Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines (born Fleischmann) was one of the few lucky children whose parents survived the war and met again. Later she became a nurse who loves music. Therefore with her husband, an architect Sir George Grenfell-Baines The

57 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace, 151. 58 Gissing and Emanuel. Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace. 26

Association of the Liverpool philharmonic’s friends. She also earned a nickname Lady Remoska because she stands behind the popularisation of this small portable electric oven.59 Hugo Marom returned to Czechoslovakia for a time after the war but did not stay very long, then visited his uncle in the USA and had stayed there. He was internationally known in the domain of airport planning and construction. His most magnificent work is the huge seaside airport in Tel Aviv. Hugo Marom passed away in 201860 Lord Alfred Dubs was seven years old when he came to Britain. His parents also survived the war and came to see him, but unfortunately his father died soon after his arrival. His mother decided not to return to Czechoslovakia, they stayed and lived in Manchester. Alfred Dubs was interested in politics from an early age, and when he reached an appropriate age, he joined the Labor Party. His political career was very successful and he focused mainly on human rights issues.61 I could write a lot of other pages about ‘Winton’s children’ but they are not my main topic of this thesis. Some of them were very young children and do not remember much from that time I do however consider it important to mention them as well because they are the last of the direct witnesses of World War II. Some of them were rea To date, only 261 from 669 children are known. Unfortunately, the chances of finding all of those children with an increasing number of years since the event diminish.

59 Lenka Tréglová, “Milena Grenfell-Baines: Říkají jí Lady Remoska,“ iDNES.cz, August 2, 2007, https://www.idnes.cz/onadnes/vztahy/milena-grenfell-baines-rikaji-ji-lady- remoska.A070730_152732_ona_pribehy_ves 60 Paměť národa, Hugo Marom, https://www.pametnaroda.cz/en/marom-hugo-1928 61 Gissing and Emanuel, Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace. 27

4 Comparison of Legacies in Great Britain and the Czech Republic

In this chapter I would like to compare my findings of the media reception of Nicholas Winton’s Legacy in Great Britain and the Czech Republic. When I was searching materials for thesis, I focused on feature films and documentary movies, not only written materials. I primarily concentrated on how those two countries help to the rest of the world to get the glimpse of the Winton’s story. Before Nicholas Winton and his story were revealed, he was just ordinary man with extraordinary life, but soon after public found out what he had done and how, it was very interesting to see as his star slowly slowly rises. My search in movie archives was surprising. I really thought that I would find plenty of materials and information from British sources and media, however I could not find one single British movie or with British co-production. There are just couple of interviews on the BBC television station, which can be found on YouTube channels or an edited version of the TV show That’s Life! and basically that is all. There were still unanswered questions about how it happened that Nicholas Winton is an international hero today, who is behind it. The answer is Matěj Mináč, who has made three movies so far and has another one he is actually working on. It is very strange to me that it was a director from Slovakia who filmed in the Czech Republic about the British man. It is interesting to see that on the publication of Nicholas Winton’s story co- produced only public television, like BBC and Czech television. So far when I look at film processing, the score is 3 - 0 for the Czech Republic. However recently found out that the Irish director Aisling Walsh is working on new movie about Nicholas Winton called One Life starring Sir as Nicholas Winton.62 As mentioned above, Matěj Mináč is also working on a new movie too. So we really have something to look forward to. In conclusion, it is not surprising that each country took a different approach to the legacy of Nicholas Winton, because the two countries, Great Britain and the Czech

62 BBC America Editors, “Sir Anthony Hopkins To Star As Holocaust Hero Nicholas Winton In Biographical Movie ´One Life´,“ BBC America, September 10, 2020, https://www.bbcamerica.com/blogs/sir-anthony-hopkins-to-star-as-holocaust-hero-nicholas-winton-in- biographical-movie-one-life--46990. 28

Republic, were affected in a different way by World War II. Britain was at war with the Nazi Third Reich, the country was bombed, but the German troops never entered Britain and the kingdom never lost its freedom. British Jews were not in direct danger of life and were not in danger of concentration camps and there are not official number of Jewish victims in the war. Czechoslovakia had the exact opposite. They lost their freedom and hope right at the beginning of 1939. They have been occupied since March 1939 and the enemies of the Third Reich had been liquidated in concentration camps. If we look at the numbers of Jewish victims, it is perhaps more understandable why Czechs identify so much with the legacy of Nicholas Winton, less than three hundred thousand Czechoslovak Jews were killed during the World War II. Even though the British media were first to present the story of Nicholas Winton and after the prime wave of interest, it looks like that the British nation lost its interest to talk and teach the younger generations about people like Nicholas Winton and maybe it can be sad or look ungrateful. In my opinion the British public did not do much for the publication of Nicholas Winton’s story, but thanks to the British nation Nicholas Winton was able save hundreds of Czech children and this is much more important than everything else. His Holiness The Dalai Lama summed it up very nicely when he said: “We must try to do our best to awake the basic human quality - compassion. This is an example of Nicholas Winton. We should learn from him a motivation and a courage to act. We must transmit his spirit from generation to generation, then the future of humanity will be brighter.”

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5 Conclusion

In this last passage I will summarise the whole theme of my bachelor thesis and I will try to evaluate the contribution of the media in presenting Winton’s story. This work acquaints the readers not only with the story of Nicholas Winton but also with way how media in Great Britain and the Czech Republic presented his story. This topic has not been researched yet and for the time this bachelor thesis monitors the story of Nicholas Winton and his legacy in the media environment and in the cinematography. From the beginning I thought it was important to get familiar with the important facts. that undoubtedly influenced his life path. We can read about Nicholas Winton’s private and professional lives and see that every step he took, the decisions he made, were life changing. Every task or mission Nicholas did very thoroughly and it seems that nothing can stop him. One of the chapters is devoted to historical situation in Europe before World War II was declared, especially in Czechoslovakia. The effect of the Munich Agreement is fundamental, especially to better understand an attitude of Great Britain toward to Czechoslovakia. For historical data and facts I have used the book of the British historian Norman Davies, Europe - A History, it was a useful resource for searching historical data. It is clear to see that the person of Nicholas Winton and his actions inspire people of different nationalities and ages around the world, but I focused on the Czech Republic and Great Britain, mainly interesting to young people. It looks like they are on the same wave. Nicholas Winton, in his late age had a great sense of humour, he was a bit of a rebel and young people also want to be rebels, have their dreams of changing to world for better place and Winton fulfils their ideas how to do it. A recognition of Nicholas Winton’s story triggered an avalanche of good deeds, and there was nothing political or religious about it, only the desire to help those who needed it. I have devoted one whole chapter to Winton’s children, although they are not the main topic of this thesis. I consider it almost an obligation to write about them, mention their memories, observation and life achievements. Their life stories are incredible and it is really amazing how most of them managed to cope with such a fate at a young and vulnerable age. 30

My research of the British media market has had very interesting results for me, it showed that Nicholas Winton was probably known just locally and was rather known by people dealing with history until he was knighted in 2003, so it was in two waves. While in the Czech Republic the story of Nicholas Winton is continuously presented by various films and documents, exhibition and also he visited the Czech Republic many times himself and was a distinguished guest here. Even these days Nicholas Winton is one of those who, after his death, has enormous influence not only in the film industry, but also in the charitable activities of various organisations that are inspired by his story. In my iterview with Matěj Mináč, I tried to figue out what led him to make several movies, until then, about a virtually unknown man from Great Britain, what was his main intention. Since in my thesis I also mention other members who, together with Nicholas Winton, tried to save as many children as possible, I wondered he planned to film something about these people in the future. This interview was complementary and unusal source of information that allowed me to look at the whole story through the eyes of director. There are two essential findings I made while writing my bachelor thesis. The first is that the media should present some positive news and stories on daily basis, especially in these very unique times when a positive approach to life important and I believe it has a positive influence on viewers and made them to be more interested in what is going on around them. The second effect is that a revelation of Nicholas Winton’s story contributed that a lot of people showed their unexpected interest in history that should be developed and supported and this act also inspired them to do good deeds. We had an opportunity to see a huge influence of Winton´s story at the end of the film Nicky’s family. Nicholas Winton was a real hero and savior for many people, they did not say all those nice things about him for no reason, he gave them a second chance to live, and most took full advantage of that chance. The important thing he mentioned was that he had not done much and everyone would behave inthe same way in a similar situation, which in my opinion is a quite courageous statement. In any case Nicholas Winton was a brave man and he fulfills a well-known quote from the Talmud with his good deeds: “Save One Life – Save the World.“63

63 Talmud - the generic term for the documents that comment and expand upon the Mishnah, the first work of rabbinic law, https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14213-talmud. 31

Bibliography:

The Abbeyfield Society, https://www.abbeyfield.com/. Adas Israel Congregation, https://www.adasisrael.org. BBC America Editors. “Sir Anthony Hopkins To Star As Holocaust Hero Nicholas Winton In Biographical Movie ´One Life´.“BBC America, September 10, 2020. https://www.bbcamerica.com/blogs/sir-anthony-hopkins-to-star-as-holocaust- hero-nicholas-winton-in-biographical-movie-one-life--46990. BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news Chadwick, William R. The Prague Refugee Story, 1938 -1939. Troubador Publishing Ltd., 2010. Kindle. Davies, Norman. EUROPE: A History. Published by Pimlico 1997. First published by Oxford University Press, 1996. Ebook. Dlouhý, Jan. “V USA ho neznají. Příběh o tichém zachránci Wintonovi přiblíží dětem nová kniha Petra Síse.“ iRozhlas, January 16, 2021. https://www.irozhlas.cz/kultura/literatura/detska-literatura-sir-nicholas-winton- petr-sis-nicky-vera-gissingova_2101161234_ban Gissing, Věra. Pearl of Childhood. New York: St. Martin´s Press, 1989. Internet archive: https://archive.org/details/pearlsofchildhoo0000giss_x4m0. Gissing, Věra, and Muriel Emanuel. Nicholas Winton a zachráněná generace. Translated by Alena Maxová. Praha: X-Egem, 2002. Internet archive, https://archive.org/details/nicholaswintonza00giss. Government Publishing Office, September 17, 2007, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2007-09-17/html/CREC-2007-09- 17-pt1-PgH10397.htm. Harris, Mark Jonathan. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2000. Jewish Encyclopedia, https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14213-talmud. Menccap, https://www.mencap.org.uk. Mináč, Matěj. All My Loved Ones. FALCON a.s., 1999. Mináč, Matěj. Nicky´s family. BONTONFILM a.s., 2011. Mináč, Matěj, phone call with the author, March 23, 2021.

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Mináč, Matěj. Sir Nicholas Winton, Jak jej neznáme. Spolek Nicholase Wintona, 2019. On-line book, http://wintonfilm.com/winton-jak-jej-nezname.pdf. Mináč, Matěj. The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton. WIP s.r.o., 2002. Sir Nicholas Winton, https://www.nicholaswinton.com. Paměť národa, https://www.pametnaroda.cz/cs. Rotary International, https://www.rotary.org/en. Sackur, Stephen. “BBC Hard Talk with Stephen Sackur, Nicholas Winton.“ Interview by Stephen Sackur. BBC, 18. November, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO63ajFFhDo. USC Shoah Foundation, https://sfi.usc.edu. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com. The National Holocaust Centre and Museum, https://www.holocaust.org.uk. Tréglová, Lenka. “Milena Grenfell-Baines: Říkali ji Lady Remoska.“ iDnes, August 2, 2007. https://www.idnes.cz/onadnes/vztahy/milena-grenfell-baines-rikaji-ji-lady- remoska.A070730_152732_ona_pribehy_ves. Wagnerová, Magdalena, and Milan Vodička. Winton Train – Po sedmdesáti letech znova do Lodnýna. Praha: Havran, 2009. Winton, Barbara. If it´s not impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton. Troubadour Publishing, 2014. Kindl. YAD VASHEM The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, https://www.yadvashem.org/.

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Picture Appendix

Young Nicholas Winton holding Hansi Beck, one of the saved children

Wedding photo of Nicholas Winton and Grete Gjelstrup

Statue of Nicholas Winton on Platform 3 in Maidenhead Railway Station 34

Nicholas Winton holding one of his honors

A memorial to the Kindertransport at London Liverpool Street

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A statue of Nicholas Winton and two children on Platform 1 at the main railway station in Prague

Garden of the Righteous with Plaque for Sir Nicholas Winton in Washington 36

Nicholas Winton’s scrapbook

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Sir Nicholas Winton and “his children”