Retracing a life-saving journey
Page last updated at 01:40 GMT, Monday, 31 August 2009 02:40 UK
By Robert Hall
BBC News
At home in London, Lisa Midwinter packs for a journey into her past; four days during which she, her son, and her granddaughter will relive her childhood experiences; four days to retrace her route out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, and to meet the man whose actions saved her life.
In 1938, Nicholas Winton, then a young stockbroker, was due to go skiing with friends in Switzerland when he received a phone call urging him to change his plans and visit Prague, where an emergency was unfolding.
The caller was his friend Martin Blake, a master at Westminster School and an ambassador for the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, which was helping adults escape.
Two months earlier, Hitler's troops had occupied the disputed territory of Sudetenland, on Czechoslovakia's border with Germany, driving thousands from their homes.
In other countries, refugee organisations had begun organising the "Kindertransports" - a series of trains carrying thousands of Jewish children out of central Europe. But no such plan existed in Czechoslovakia.
After visiting refugee camps outside Prague, Winton realised he had to act quickly.
"I found out the children of refugees and other groups of people who were enemies of Hitler weren't being looked after. I decided to try to get permits to Britain for them.
"Everybody in Prague said, 'Look, there is no organisation in Prague to deal with refugee children, nobody will let the children go on their own, but if you want to have a go, have a go'.
"And I think there is nothing that can't be done if it is fundamentally reasonable."
Concentration camps
After recruiting a team to organise a new series of trains, Winton returned to the UK to find homes for as many children as possible.
Between March and August 1939, eight Winton trains carried 669 children to safety; the last train, with 250 children on board, was due to leave on 1 September - the day war broke out.
See the route taken by the Winton train
At the last minute, German troops intervened; the children were never seen again. They, and most of the families left behind, were transported east to the concentration camps.
Vera Gissing's two cousins were on that train but instead of England, they ended up in Belsen. They, along with her mother, never made it out of the camp.
The 10-year-old ended up in Bootle, Lancashire, while her sister Eva was sent to a boarding school in Bournemouth.
Their parents tried to keep smiling as the train pulled out, and she can remember shouting: "See you again in a free Czechoslovakia".
Alf Dubs, a former minister in the Blair cabinet, was another of "Winton's children". The six-year-old was met at Liverpool Street train station by his father, who had left Prague the day the Nazis arrived.
Lord Dubs said Winton, who is now Sir Nicholas, was a " phenomenal individual, one of the really great human beings".
"Without any doubt I owe my life to him. I think my chance of surviving and that of the others would have been pretty slim."
'Why me?'
Lisa Midwinter, originally Lisa Dasch, was three when she made the journey to England with her brother.
Born in Teplice, near the German border, the well-heeled family were on holiday when they received word not to return home but head straight to Prague.
"I remember this great big black object as high as you could see. I remember figures in blue, which must have been the train driver, singing and handkerchiefs, and terrific noise.
"I remember handkerchiefs being waved and crying, and seeing grown-ups crying."
At the end of the journey, Ms Midwinter said she felt "totally desolate with a card on the front me".
"I remember this feeling of being all alone in a totally foreign place."
She was initially taken to stay with a dentist's family in Manchester but they could not cope with her because she was in "such a state".
A friend of her mother's in Stoke-on-Trent agreed to take her in, and Ms Midwinter's first happy memories of England involve "being picked up to post letters through a red letter box".
Her story has a happy ending as her parents made it out and settled in Stoke-on-Trent, where they acted as surrogate parents for many Czech children.
Like many of the evacuees, Ms Midwinter only learned about Sir Nicholas many years later through a television programme. When she met him, she naturally asked '"Why me?"
"He said because you'd have been the first to go... that we were a middle class Jewish family and the Germans would have got rid of us first."
Marian Simo of Czech Railways gives a tour around the train the Winton children are retracing their journey on
This week she will board a train to meet old friends and face her memories.
More than 100 people will travel between Prague and London; among them 20 of Winton's children, now with children and grandchildren of their own.
Ms Midwinter is determined that her family should understand how much they owe to Sir Nicholas, and gain a glimpse of the agony faced by Czech parents who knew they were seeing their children for the last time.
But above all that they should understand they are part of an extraordinary worldwide family which owes its existence to the man who, at the age of 100, will once again stand on the platform at Liverpool Street to welcome them.
Winton Train Project
The goal of our project is to inspire young people through the deeds of Nicholas Winton, and for this reason future journalists and artists are participating in a series of cultural and social events prepared as part of the Winton Train – Inspiration by Goodness project.
Also as part of the project we have prepared contests for secondary school and university students. Inspired by the story of Nicholas Winton, students are actively seeking and capturing – in the form of documentary films, literary works, photography, or artistic enterprises – stories of personal courage and goodness in today’s turbulent and complex world.
Together with Czech Railways, we will dispatch on 1 September 2009 the Winton Train, which will re-trace the original route from Prague to London. It will symbolise the unconquerable desire for freedom and a declaration of resistance against the national, ethnic and religions intolerance which unfortunately gives rise to conflicts to this day in various parts of the world including Europe. Several descendants of the children Winton rescued will travel inside the period carriages pulled by a steam engine. They will be accompanied by students and famous European personalities. The train’s departure from Prague’s Main Station, the course of the journey and triumphant arrival at Liverpool Station in London will be accompanied by many cultural and social events. We believe that the train will be personally greeted by Sir Nicholas Winton himself.
Aboard the train, film crews of young journalists and artists will record the journey, its most interesting moments and above all the sentiments and experiences of participants. The directorial supervisor will be Matej MináÄ.
It is our wish and the wish of our project partners, that in the future another Winton Train be dispatched with young people and their artworks inspired by goodness bound for other European cities, and that it become a tradition to commemorate the resilient determination of people to believe in goodness and actively take part in a common future.
An excerpt from an interview with Olga Menzelová-Kelymanová with the Motion magazine from 21 Janurary 2008, in which she talks about the beginnings of the project Winton Train – Inspiration by Goodness.
Can you tell us more about the grand project Winton Train?
Together with Czech Railways' communications director ZbynÄ›k Honys we are preparing an important event called Train Prague – London. We are currently holding talks on naming it after Nicholas Winton. The aim of the project is to go through Europe up to Great Britain on a special train pulled by a steam locomotive, which will resemble the trains which were dispatched by Sir Nicholas Winton from Prague, Wilson Station, to London in 1939. He rescued hundreds of not only Jewish children from Hitler's "final solution". Passengers will include the first, second, or even third generation of children rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. The train will depart from the same place and will continue through Germany to the Dutch coast, from where passengers will be transported by ferry to England. They will continue by train to Liverpool Street Station, where they will express their gratitude to Sir Nicholas Winton, who will be 100 years old at that time. There will be many prominent congratulators present from all over the world. The scene should resemble what happened 70 years ago. The project itself builds on the world famous documentary The Power of Good by Matej MinÃ¡Ä and on his new film project Nicky's Family. Many artists, politicians, scientists and representatives of important organisations will gradually brcome involved in the project and the event will be monitored by the foreign media. We are also counting on young people's stories, which will be elaborated by film school students from various countries under the supervision of Matej MináÄ. I was honoured to accept Czech Railways' offer to represent the project and become the ambassadorof the Train , which, I suppose, will bear the name of Sir Nicholas Winton.
