Nicky & Vera by Peter Sis (Courtesy W.W. Norton and Company); Holocaust-era hero Nicholas Winton, who helped save 669 Czech children from the Nazi invasion. (AP/Petr David Josek, File)
When Vera, a young Jewish girl, was growing up outside of Prague in 1938, she had little on her mind besides her grandmother and love of animals. But her blissful childhood would change forever with the emerging crisis brought about by her country’s neighbor, Nazi Germany.
When Vera’s parents learned about an opportunity for Jewish children to escape to the United Kingdom organized by an Englishman named Nicholas Winton, they sent their 9-year-old daughter on a train out. Ultimately, 669 Jewish children were saved by the series of transports out of Czechoslovakia.
BBC News
Published
image captionA statue of Sir Nicholas Winton has been lit up at Maidenhead railway station
A statue of the man known as the British Schindler has been lit up to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
Sir Nicholas Winton smuggled 669 boys and girls, destined for concentration camps, out of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Great Western Railway (GWR) said it decided to illuminate the monument to him at Maidenhead railway station with one candle for each child he rescued.
The statue of Sir Nicholas, who died aged 106 in 2015, was first unveiled by the town s MP Theresa May in 2010.
image copyrightPA Media
image captionSir Nicholas carrying a refugee child in 1939