Czech Govt proposes granting Nicholas Winton the Order of the White Lion

The Czech Government will propose to the President of the Republic that Nicholas Winton, the man who saved hundreds of Jewish children during WWII, be awarded the Order of the White Lion. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek (Christian Democrats – KDU-ČSL) informed journalists of the Government’s decision yesterday.  

Czech President Miloš Zeman has already stated that he would grant Winton the Czech Republic’s highest state medal. Discussion of the proposal, submitted by Czech Agriculture Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL), was postponed in May by the cabinet in order to review the material with Prague Castle. 

Zeman then announced he would grant Winton the distinction. The Government and head of state also sent him a letter congratulating him on his 105th birthday.   

The order should be given to Winton on the occasion of the celebration of Czechoslovak independence on 28 October. However, the media have reported that Winton will not be able to attend the ceremony for medical reasons.

The modest Brit organized the evacuation of 669 Czechoslovak Jewish children from what was then the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Britain just before the outbreak of WWII. He arranged documents for them and for them to be taken into British families. 

The first train carrying the Jewish children left the main train station in Prague in May 1939. A train that was supposed to leave Prague on 1 September 1939 with 250 children on board was banned from leaving by the Nazis. 

The public was long unaware of Winton’s service. Holocaust historian Elisabeth Maxwell helped publicize his role.

The public first became aware of him when the BBC made a documentary about him in 1988 and he found himself in a television studio with the people he had saved. He has already been given many British and Czech honors, including a knighthood. 

In 1998, then-Czech President Václav Havel awarded him the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. In 2010 he received the Hero of the Holocaust medal from former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.