Nicholas Winton, English lieutenant and humanitarian (b. 1909)
Sir Nicholas George Winton (born Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue children who were at risk from oppression by Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia he helped compile a list of children needing rescue and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfill the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them.
This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children's transport").
His humanitarian accomplishments went unnoticed by the world for nearly 50 years until 1988 when he was invited to the BBC television programme That's Life!, where he was reunited with dozens of the children he had helped come to Britain and was introduced to many of their children and grandchildren. The British press celebrated him and dubbed him the "British Schindler". In 2003, Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia". On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion (1st class), by Czech President Miloš Zeman. He died in his sleep, in 2015, at the age of 106.