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Help us to find Nicky’s Children

Appeal to locate the 669 youngsters the British Schindler saved from Nazis

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Twenty-seven years ago, a group of total strangers met in a television studio for a recording of the popular BBC show, That's Life. They all had one thing in common - the man who had saved their lives.

He was also there, and had no idea that the audience members sitting with him were those very people, 50 years on.

They were, of course, "Nicky's Children" - some of the 669 youngsters brought by Sir Nicholas Winton to the UK from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Sir Nicholas died this year, aged 106. Next month, on Holocaust Memorial Day, the BBC will show a new documentary on the subject, called Nicky's Family.

The astonishing story remained hidden for 50 years until his wife, Greta, unearthed a scrapbook of all the children he had saved gathering dust in their attic. She had no idea of his heroism.

Nor did anyone else until the filming of That's Life, when presenter, Esther Rantzen, said: "Can I ask is there anyone in the audience who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, could you please stand up."

Sir Nicholas, then in his late 70s, turned to stare in amazement as his "children" rose as one, having been found and brought in by the programme's researchers. As they applauded, he brushed away tears from beneath his spectacles.

The 29-year-old stockbroker from Maidenhead had been in Prague in 1938, shortly after Hitler annexed the border region of Sudetenland.

He decided to act after visiting refugee camps and seeing that there was no organised relief effort for the children. He then ensured that between March and August, 669 Czech children - mostly Jewish - arrived in the UK on Kindertransport trains and he even found them foster families.

The TV researchers tried to contact all the names listed in his scrapbook, but not all were found.

Many more will still be out there - unknown except perhaps to family and friends as one of "Nicky's Children".

For this year's HMD, the JC would like to contact them. We want to locate as many of those saved by Sir Nicholas as we can.

In the week of HMD, we will then bring That's Life up to date - with the most comprehensive listing of "Nicky's Childen" so far.

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