The president of the Czech Republic has awarded a Briton his country’s highest state honor for organizing a mass evacuation of children to save them from Nazi death camps.
Sir Nicholas Winton received the Order of the White Lion from President Milos Zeman at a ceremony Tuesday at Prague Castle. The 105-year-old Winton, accepting the award from a wheelchair, said he was delighted to receive it.
Zeman said he was ashamed that Winton had waited to get the honor for so long but added: “Better late than never.”
Winton had arranged for eight trains to carry 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia through Germany to Britain at the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
The Czechs have repeatedly nominated Winton for the Nobel Peace Prize.
(AP)
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3 Responses
You forgot to mention the extremely important fact that of all the Jewish boys saved, only 10 of them were frum and one of them was HaGaon Hatzaddik R’ Yitzchok Tuviah Weiss, the very Gaavad of Jerusalem of today!!!!
Yad Vashem never honored him as “righteous among the nations” because he was born Jewish. His family name was Wertheim.
In any event he risked his life to save victims of the Germans during WWII.
I read about him a few times already. truly an honorable man.