In bringing Winton together with those he rescued, the campaigner and broadcaster helped bring their story “to the attention of the world”, the charity added.
“The AJR was honoured to bring together members who had journeyed to safety on Winton’s transports – Lord Alf Dubs, Hana Eardley, Alexandra Greensted, Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, Vera Schaufeld, Renate Collins, Emanuela Norton and Lia Lesser, alongside Rev John Fieldsend – to thank Dame Esther for taking their story ‘to a global audience’.
“Their final words to her feel especially poignant today: ‘Having stood up to thank him, we are now standing up to honour you.’
“Today, the AJR stands with them in honouring Dame Esther and the remarkable role she played in ensuring their story would never be forgotten. May her memory be a blessing.
Esther Rantzen poses with her Female Personality of the Year award from the Royal Television Society on May 29, 1974 (Getty Images)Getty Images
Dubbed “the British Oskar Schindler”, Winton, who died in 2015 aged 106, arrived in Prague to meet a friend shortly after Christmas 1938.
The capital of what was then Czechoslovakia was filled with refugees after Hitler’s unopposed invasion of its German-speaking Sudetenland region earlier that year.
Winton organised trains from Prague to London – known as the Czech Kindertransport operation – to help children get to safety before Nazi stormtroopers annexed the whole country.
Once the children arrived in England, he worked around the clock to find families willing to put up the then huge sum of £50 and agree to look after the children until they were 17.
Esther Rantzen poses after she was made a Dame by the Princess Royal at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on June 25, 2015 (Getty Images)Getty Images
In 1988, Winton was invited to the That’s Life! Studio for the programme’s broadcast of an episode about his work, under the pretext that he was there to check it for accuracy.
But it was revealed during the show that he was surrounded by audience members whose lives he had saved, and an emotional Winton wiped tears from his eyes as they applauded him in thanks for his extraordinary efforts.
He was finally brought together with hundreds of the children – including Labour peer Lord “Alf” Dubs and film director Karel Reisz – in an emotional gathering for 5,000 descendants of the “Winton children”.
Winton’s story was dramatised in the 2023 film One Life, which was directed by Slow Horses’ James Hawes and starred Anthony Hopkins as the humanitarian hero.
On Holocaust Memorial Day in 2024, nine of the refugees wrote to Rantzen, through the AJR, to thank her for the role she played in bringing them together.
Their letter said: “Featuring the story of the Kindertransport on That’s Life! significantly helped popularise the unique history of the Kindertransport.
“It is our fervent hope it will never again be needed.
“At the end of the second episode of That’s Life!, you famously asked whether anyone else in the audience owes their life to Nicky.
“Having stood up to thank him, we are now standing up to honour you.”
