A former stockbroker who saved hundreds of children from the Holocaust by organising trains to take them from Prague to London today said it was “wonderful that it did work out so well”.
Sir Nicholas Winton, 100, from Maidenhead, Berkshire, Britain masterminded the mass evacuation shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War.
He laid on eight trains to carry 669 mostly Jewish children through Nazi Germany and to London.
Today, to mark the 70th anniversary of the escape, a steam train arrived at the capital’s Liverpool Street Station after setting off from Prague on Tuesday to recreate the journey.
Twenty-two evacuees, joined by about 150 other passengers, were greeted by Sir Nicholas at the station.
At a ceremony held alongside the platform, Sir Nicholas spoke of his joy at being reunited with the evacuees.
He described the operation to bring the youngsters to Britain in 1939 as “quite difficult” but joked: “This is much harder work than it was 70 years ago.”
He added: “It all worked out very well and it’s wonderful that it did work out so well because, after all, history should have made it very different.”
As well as the invited guests, several hundred people gathered on nearby platforms to listen to Sir Nicholas’s words.
PA