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Holocaust Memorial Day – January 27th 2016
Today is Holocaust Day (27th January 2016) and it's 71 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The theme marking this year's day is "Don't Stand by". And if anyone could teach us the importance of this statement – it would be Sir Nicholas Winton.
A few days ago I watched a film called Nicky's Family, which was screened at Glasgow's Film Theatre to a cinema full of secondary school children. A version of this film will be shown on BBC1 tonight at 22.45 pm.
This documentary, made by film director and producer Matej Minac, tells the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a London-based stockbroker, who became known as Britain's Schindler. In 1939, aged 28, he embarked on an incredible journey to Czechoslovakia which led him to save the lives of 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. He established the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia – Children's Section and he brought children to Britain via train, called Kindertransport, arranging for their adoption by families throughout the country.
Winton helped 669 children out of Czechoslovakia in 1939
The film was made in 2011 and it's a compelling story, pieced together by interviews with some of these children who are now well into middle age.
It's impossible to imagine the trauma these children faced, and now when interviewed, the pain and memories are evident, seen in the tears that trickle down their older, wiser, wrinkled faces. They retell the stories of their parents anguish and heartbreak at putting them on trains to a far and distant land. And when most of those parents faced the Nazi gas chambers, they knew they had done the right thing because they had saved their children by sending them away.
Six million Jews died during WWII and the recollections in Nicky's Family will stay with you. One story tells of a mother being advised to encourage her children to sing when they are in the gas chamber, because singing means increased inhalation and a quicker death.
Some of these children who came to Britain were as young as three years old, split up from their families with hardly any possessions in a strange country, but they were given a lifeline. It was heartbreaking to hear that a train was due to leave for Britain on Sept 1st 1939 carrying over 250 children – then war broke out, following Hitler's invasion of Poland – and everything changed. The train never left and those children most certainly didn't survive.
There were some funny recollections. When the train stopped in Holland the children were welcomed by women in national dress serving hot chocolates and strange white bread – which the children had never tasted before.
And we learned that Britain in 1939 was a tolerant and compassionate country. Willing to reach out and help. One man told a story of how he arrived in London with his four brothers. It was dark, they had been waiting all day for someone to collect them. A taxi driver took the five boys off the street and back home to his wife, who looked after them.
The compassion and tenacity of Winton was inspiring. He was someone who didn't stand by. He pressed on with his crusade and tried to get as many children out as he could. Often speeding up the process by making up fake passports and papers.
When the children stopped arriving after the onset of war, there was nothing else Winton could do. He joined the RAF in the fight against the war. He eventually met his wife Grete, and settled down. He told no one about his past, not even Grete, but she discovered his old scrapbooks in the attic of their home. There were names upon names of children, photographs and documents.
Eventually Winton's story found its way onto Esther Rantzen's TV programme That's Life in 1988. Where unknown to Winton, he was sitting in the audience with around 100 people – all of whom he had rescued. One can't imagine what that must have felt like for him, as he wiped tears away from his eyes, or for those people who finally met the man who had rescued them.
He was knighted in 2003 and in Nicky's Family we also get a sense of his later years, still helping people, finding causes and creating some mischief, being booked for speeding and retaining a sense of adventure by flying in small aircraft. What is most striking though is his humility, he seemed embarrassed at all the attention and we have his wife to thank for bringing his story to us.
While this film contains many horrors, there is also a strong sense of hope. The "children" Winton saved – have married, made families, and the generations include grandchildren. Those 669 children have grown to 5,700 people. And so the story becomes Nicky's Family. Many of these people have found their way into charitable acts and are making real differences to the world around them. And people who have heard of Winton's story have been inspired to help others.
His story is an inspiration. He died on 1st July 2015, the anniversary of the departure of a train in 1939 which carried the largest number of children – 241. He was 106.
This film was shown at the Glasgow Film Theatre as part of Holocaust Day. And there was also a Q&A session afterwards with 92-year-old Henry Wuga. Henry came to Scotland aged 15 via Kindertransport system. He eventually met his wife Ingrid, in a refugee club in Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street. They married in the synagogue at Pollokshields on December 27, 1944.
His recollections were fascinating and he received an MBE in 1999 for his work with the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association. A keen skier, he only stopped skiing last year, aged 91. He trained ex-soldiers who have lost limbs to slalom down slopes, as well as raising tens of thousands of pounds for the charity.
Read more of Henry's story here on the Daily Record link
Henry emphasized the importance of reaching out to people and helping, "it's so important" he said and it really does make a difference. Don't Stand By.
Filed under Charity, Film Reviews, Films, Glasgow Film Theatre
Tagged as Glasgow, Glasgow Film Theatre, Henry Wuga, Holocaust Day 2016, Movie Review, Nicky's Family Movie, Sir Nicholas Winton