In what was described as “a belated expression of thanks”, a group of people saved from the Holocaust by Sir Nicholas Winton when they were children have dedicated a monument in Prague.

The “Farewell Memorial”, which now stands at Prague’s main train station, is a replica of a 1939 train door. One side shows the imprints of the hands of children, while the reverse shows adult handprints — a vivid portrayal of the way parents said goodbye to their children.

Sir Nicholas, who died in 2015 aged 106, rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia and brought them to Britain on eight trains just before the outbreak of war in September 1939. Most of the children never saw their parents again.

Zuzana Maresova, one of the children rescued by Sir Nicholas, came up with the idea of having the memorial erected. She told Radio Prague that seeing parents weep bitterly while urging their children onto the trains remains one of her most vivid childhood memories.