環(huán)球英語 — 714：Please Save Our Children
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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Marina Santee.
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And I'm Mike Procter. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Nicholas Winton had a secret. He told no one. For almost fifty years no one knew what he had done – he did not even tell his wife. Family and friends would look at this small, old man and never think he was a hero. People who served him in the stores or passed him in the street saw only an old man walking with the aid of a stick.
Then, in 1988 the world learned his secret: Nicholas Winton had helped to rescue nearly 700 children from death. Without him, these children would have been victims of the Nazis in World War two. Today, thousands of people can say they exist because of Nicholas Winton.
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During the Second World War many Jewish people were rescued from the Nazis in Europe. Some of their rescuers became famous names - like Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler. Films like 'Schindler's List' have told stories of their courage, and how they tricked Hitler's men. But only now has a film been released to tell the story of Nicholas Winton. It shows how children escaped from Prague to England as Nazi armies marched into Czechoslovakia. Prague is the English translation of Praha, which today is the capital city of the Czech Republic.
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In 1938 Adolf Hitler sent his armies into western Czechoslovakia. He claimed that the land belonged to Germany. Many Jewish families lived there. They had already escaped from Germany - but now they were forced to flee again, this time to Prague. They knew they would be sent to Hitler's prison camps if the Nazi soldiers captured them.
At this time, the British government did not see the danger. But Nicholas Winton did. He was just a young man - twenty eight years old - an age when young men like to do fun things! But Winton cancelled a holiday in Switzerland and went instead to Czechoslovakia to visit the Jewish refugees. He wanted to see what he could do to help them.
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An aid organisation had been attempting to get Jewish families out of Prague before the German armies arrived. But this work was becoming impossible. Finally, Jewish parents were so afraid that they said, 'Even if you cannot get us to freedom, please, please help our children to escape'.
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Nicholas Winton went back to England to devote his time and energy to saving the young Jewish children. He had family in Germany and he knew how the Nazi government was crushing the Jewish people.
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But the British government did not see the danger. Officials did not believe that war was only months away. They were very slow to issue the documents that Nicholas Winton needed to save the children.
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However, Nicholas Winton was in a hurry! He printed false papers to get the children out of Czechoslovakia – they would be exchanged for real documents when the children arrived in England. He worked at his job during the day, but he spent his nights trying to persuade British people to receive young Jewish refugees into their homes. It was very difficult. Each family that agreed to receive a child had to pay the British government fifty English pounds. This was more than three months' wages, so only people with a lot of money could help.
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On March the fourteenth, 1939 the first group of children left Prague by airplane. Over the next few months another seven groups of children travelled out of Czechoslovakia. They travelled overland by train and then crossed the sea by boat to safety. Then, on September the first, the biggest group of children gathered to flee Prague. There were 250 of them.
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But they did not escape. That day, Hitler's armies invaded Poland. The Second World War had begun and Germany closed all borders. The children were among many people taken to Nazi prison camps. Nicholas Winton says that not one of the children was seen again. If the train had left a day earlier they would have been saved. That is a thought that saddens Nicholas Winton's heart to this day.
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The children who had escaped to England hoped they would see their parents again after the war. But this did not happen. The Nazis killed their parents and brothers and sisters. All they had were pictures and memories of happy times with their families before the Nazis took power.
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Years passed by. The war ended and the children grew to become adults. Many of them married and had children and then grandchildren. But one question remained in their minds: who was the Englishman that welcomed them when they first arrived in England? No one knew.
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Then, one day, Grete Winton was searching among some old books and papers in her home. There she found pictures, letters and documents that her husband, Nicholas, had put away. She told a friend named Elisabeth Maxwell. Elisabeth Maxwell was a doctor of history. She was an expert on the Nazi oppression of the Jews in the Second World War. She was also the wife of a rich newspaper owner, and his paper published the story of Nicholas Winton.
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People who had been saved read the stories. They wrote to Nicholas Winton to thank him. Then he appeared on a television programme. The programme was recorded with a studio audience - a large number of people sitting in a theatre. Nicholas was among them. During the show, the presenter asked anyone who owed their life to Nicholas Winton to stand up. An amazing thing happened. Everyone stood up! The whole audience! Nicholas was very surprised. The TV company had filled the theatre with people whom he had rescued when they were children. It was a very moving, emotional event. After that, more letters came from all over the world. Today people still write to thank Nicholas Winton. He is now more than one hundred years old.
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Nicholas Winton has received many honours, including a special title from the Queen of England - he is now Sir Nicholas Winton. In January 2011 he went to Prague for the launch of a new film about his work. There he was also told that his name has been put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize – one of the greatest honours in the world.
The quiet hero is now famous. And he still lives by the same belief that saved those 669 children all those years ago:
"If something is not impossible there must be a way of doing it".
