'English Schindler' Nicholas Winton dies aged 106, Nicholas Winton, a Briton who saved hundreds of Jewish kids in Prague from the Nazis in the keep running up to World War II, has passed on at 106 years old, his family said on Wednesday.
Son-in-law Stephen Watson said Winton passed on calmly in his sleep at Wexham Hospital in Slough, west of London.
Conceived in London of German-Jewish parents, Winton headed out to Nazi-involved Czechoslovakia - which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 - as a youthful worker of the London Stock Exchange.
It was there that he composed trains that transported some 669 youngsters, most of them Jews, to Britain in 1939, saving them from death camps and close to guaranteed demise.
An extra prepare was set to leave on September 3, 1939, the day Britain announced war on Germany, however the borders were at that point sealed. None of the 250 youngsters were seen once more.
Winton's efforts earned him the handle "English Schindler" in reference to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Polish Jews amid the war.
"A decent man, Sir Nicholas Winton, has passed away. He will stay everlastingly a symbol of fearlessness, profound humankind and staggering modesty," Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Twitter.
President Milos Zeman tweeted: "He was a man I respected for his strength."
British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "The world has lost an extraordinary man. We must always remember Sir Nicholas Winton's mankind in saving such a variety of kids from the Holocaust."
Winton stayed silent about his mission for 50 years until his wife discovered confirmation of it in their upper room.
He was knighted in 2003, and his Czech supporters have over and over appealed to for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
"He was staggeringly extraordinary in that he didn't tell anybody for such quite a while" about his wartime activities, said Tomas Kraus, leader of the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities.
"He wasn't the one and only, there were all the more such personalities. In his case, its the modesty that is so extraordinary, he considered it an insignificant episode in his life."
Son-in-law Stephen Watson said Winton passed on calmly in his sleep at Wexham Hospital in Slough, west of London.
Conceived in London of German-Jewish parents, Winton headed out to Nazi-involved Czechoslovakia - which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 - as a youthful worker of the London Stock Exchange.
It was there that he composed trains that transported some 669 youngsters, most of them Jews, to Britain in 1939, saving them from death camps and close to guaranteed demise.
An extra prepare was set to leave on September 3, 1939, the day Britain announced war on Germany, however the borders were at that point sealed. None of the 250 youngsters were seen once more.
Winton's efforts earned him the handle "English Schindler" in reference to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Polish Jews amid the war.
"A decent man, Sir Nicholas Winton, has passed away. He will stay everlastingly a symbol of fearlessness, profound humankind and staggering modesty," Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Twitter.
President Milos Zeman tweeted: "He was a man I respected for his strength."
British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "The world has lost an extraordinary man. We must always remember Sir Nicholas Winton's mankind in saving such a variety of kids from the Holocaust."
Winton stayed silent about his mission for 50 years until his wife discovered confirmation of it in their upper room.
He was knighted in 2003, and his Czech supporters have over and over appealed to for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
"He was staggeringly extraordinary in that he didn't tell anybody for such quite a while" about his wartime activities, said Tomas Kraus, leader of the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities.
"He wasn't the one and only, there were all the more such personalities. In his case, its the modesty that is so extraordinary, he considered it an insignificant episode in his life."
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