Nearing 80-years-old and urged by his wife Grete (Lena Olin) to reduce some of his store of papers, Winton, who never told his family about his role in saving so many refugees, wonders what lessons the scrapbook documenting his work might offer to a wider public. While the tense, action-oriented 1938-39 timeline is inherently more compelling because of the race to get all the moving pieces (the trains, the visas, the host families, the £50-per-child bond, medical certificates) in place to transport the children out of Prague before the Nazis enter and the borders close, the 1988 section is slower and more contemplative. She gets some of the best lines, including crucial expository ones, such as when she shames a minor English bureaucrat by extolling what she sees as the British virtues of a commitment to decency, kindness and a respect for others. ![]() While he ultimately organizes and raises money from the UK, we see (albeit barely characterized) Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai), head of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia in Prague, and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp), a former school teacher, doing dangerous work on the ground in the Czech capital.Ī more prominent figure in the film, finally receiving credit, is Nicky’s mother, the tireless Babette Winton (tartly portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter), a German-Jewish migrant herself, since converted to the Church of England. 1, 1939, he masterminds eight successful transports, bringing 669 Czech and Slovak youngsters to foster families in Great Britain.Īs the ever-modest Winton would have wanted, the film is careful to share the credit for the evacuation transports and host family placements. Many of the youngsters are Jews in imminent danger of deportation. ![]() Seeing the appalling conditions in refugee camps housing those fleeing from Austria, Germany and the Sudetenland, he launches an operation to rescue vulnerable children under the auspices of the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia. ![]() In December 1938, Winton, known as Nicky, then a 29-year-old London stockbroker, visits Prague.
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