Sir Nicholas Winton has been dubbed “Britain’s Schindler”.
A 105-year-old British man has been awarded the Czech Republic’s highest state order for helping to save 669 children from the Nazis.
Sir Nicholas Winton received the Order of the White Lion from Czech president Miloš Zeman on Tuesday.
In 1939, when he was 29 years old, Winton helped hundreds of children, the majority of whom were Jewish, flee Czechoslovakia by train, and arranged for foster families to meet them upon their arrival in London, the BBC reported.
AP Photo/Petr David Josek
This week the Czech president arranged for Winton, dubbed “Britain’s Schindler”, to be flown from Britain aboard a military jet to receive the award.
Upon accepting the honour, Winton said: "I want to thank you all for this enormous expression of thanks for something which happened to me nearly 100 years ago – and a 100 years is a heck of a long time."
AP Photo/Petr David Josek
"I am delighted that so many of the children are still about and are here to thank me."
"I thank the British people for making room for them, to accept them, and of course the enormous help given by so many of the Czechs who were at that time doing what they could to fight the Germans and to try to get the children out."
Winton kept his actions a secret for over 50 years until his wife found a scrapbook with details of the evacuation.
AP Photo/Petr David Josek
She convinced him to appear on the BBC's That’s Life programme in 1988 to discuss what he had done during the war. Unbeknown to him, the show's producers had filled the room with 80 of the people he saved decades earlier.
BBC / Via youtube.com
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