WEBVTT - NICK WINTON, JR.: "One Life" 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.799 We are approaching the end of March, my friend, We've 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.200 had a few sweet, mild, lamb like days where I 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.840 live the kind of day where you have to step outside, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:23.400 turn your face to the sun, breathe deep, stretch and 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:31.080 feel profoundly fortunate. For well, everything spring does that to you. 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.040 It fills your heart with hope. It energizes you for 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:42.519 tasks as of yet unknown but would certainly lie ahead. Hope, hope. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.480 Sometimes it's all we have, and you know what, it's 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.400 really all we need. Today's episode of love, someone is 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:52.640 going to be full of hope and the story of 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.520 a man that held onto it despite the most desperate 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:02.840 of circumstances. Nicki Winton was a young London stockbroker who 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:08.480 visited Prague in December of nineteen thirty eight. There he 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.640 discovers a large population of refugees who have fled the Nazis. 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.920 During his brief visit to Prague, he was moved by 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:25.000 the side of families living in unsanitary conditions, unsheltered and 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.160 ill prepared for the harsh winter conditions, and he knew 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.760 he must do something. He must do something, at least 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:38.039 for the children. Nicky went and manages to convince those 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:43.600 involved with the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia to 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.200 help him get as many children as possible to safety 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:53.000 before the inevitable Nazi occupation closes the borders. He set 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.040 to the task of compiling a list of children needing 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.840 to be rescued and returning to Britain, worked to fulfill 0:01:59.920 --> 0:02:06.280 them the legal requirements of passports, visas foster families, eventually 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:11.760 helping to facilitate the evacuation of an amazing six hundred 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:18.200 and sixty nine children to British soil. Fifty years later, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:24.239 married and his own children raised, Nicky Winton is haunted 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.320 by the fate of the children they weren't able to 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:32.200 bring to safety. It's not until the BBC TV show 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:37.560 That's Life reintroduces him to some of those he helped 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.000 rescue that he begins to come to terms with the 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.640 guilt and grief he carried, and he became a national hero. 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.680 Based on the book If It's Not Impossible The Life 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.480 of Sir Nicholas Winton, written by his daughter Barbara Winton. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.560 The new movie One Life, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, tells 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:08.200 this incredible, emotional true story of Nicholas Nicky Winton and 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:13.280 those who would later call themselves Nicky's children. Today we 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.720 have the great honor of welcoming Sir Nicholas Wynton's son, 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.760 Nick Junior to this podcast. I have a feeling this 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.240 is going to be an emotional conversation, but one I 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.920 know I'm going to so enjoy. Let me share a 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.520 little bit about one of the amazing podcast sponsors and 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.520 then we will get right into this conversation. Have you 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.360 been looking for a milk replacement because you have dairy 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:46.240 allergies or sensitivities. Well, I found one that's absolutely amazing. 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:53.520 It's Sherry's hazel Cream, made from Oregon hazelnuts. This plant 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.840 based milk stands out from the competitors because it's designed 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.880 for cooking and baking. It all started because Sherry, who 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.360 could no longer tolerate dairy products, wanted to make gravy, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.480 but not gravy that tasted like coconut or oatmeal. 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Somebody had posted it, and I watched 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.640 it two or three times, and then I did a 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:59.440 little research myself and I found maybe two inches of information, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:06.160 you know, on the internet about your father. I'm going 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.240 to get emotional here just thinking about it. And I 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.160 thought at the time when I saw that clip, and 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.840 I saw it showed him and the audience, and then 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.480 the moderator said, anybody whose life was saved, stand up. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:31.440 And in the actual TV show clip, he didn't see 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:36.000 the people behind him. He saw the person to his 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:41.000 side and to his left and to his right. But 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.000 they the producers of that show, and what year was 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.400 at eighty eight, seven. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.120 Eighty eight, they said, would you like to look behind you? 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.920 And she said it so sweetly on the little clip 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.520 that was on going around social media that he looked 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.000 like he was going to collapse under the weight of 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:03.800 those lives. 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:10.880 It's an amazing piece of television, and the presenter Esther 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.600 Ranson says, it's one of the greatest pieces of TV 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.640 she's ever made. And my father took ten twenty years 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.840 to forgive her because he was invited to the studio 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:27.960 under false pretenses, supposedly giving advice on the accuracy of 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.080 the segment that they were going to produce, and he 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.640 was sat down in the middle of the front row 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:35.800 and ambushed. 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:36.960 And ambushed with love. 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.880 Yeah, there was very moving and he was brought up 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.960 in a generation where you don't show emotion, you know, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.480 it's all very poker faced and stiff upper lip. And 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.160 the fact that he even had a tear is for 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:58.800 him almost equivalent to a breakdown. It's extraordinary. And every 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.679 time I watch it, I've seen it quite a few times, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.360 I find it very tearful, very tip because of what 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.160 it represents, you know, so many lives, so many lives. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.800 I started crying five minutes into the movie because I 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.679 had seen that clip and I had done a little 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.240 research myself. And then at the end of it, my 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.960 sister was watching it simultaneously in her house. We must 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:28.040 have started it like at the same time without knowing that. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.200 And she wrote to me and she said, I'm sobbing, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.520 And I couldn't even respond for a few minutes because 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.800 I wasn't sobbing. I was ugly crying. I was just 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:46.280 like And I slept so soundly after I had that 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:51.880 good cry. But what was it like being the son 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.959 of and I'm guessing the movie portrayed your father accurately, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.840 and that he never considered himself a saint, he never 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.280 considered himself a hero. 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.559 Yeah, I mean that the film is accurate in all 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.160 the important ways. There are very few artistic licenses that 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:16.760 the filmmakers have taken. And yes, as he says, without 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.160 wanting to spoil anybody's pleasure who's yet to see the film, 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.040 he was just an ordinary guy and he considered it 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.080 part of his moral duty to be involved in the 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:33.679 community and help and it might be worth remembering. This 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.680 film is based on my sister's book, which is a 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.400 biography of his whole life. He lived for one till 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:41.280 one hundred and six. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.679 Okay, way back up, you said you're seventy one. I did, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.560 and that you have maybe ten years of storytelling. But 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.000 if I'm doing the math correctly and your dad lived 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.640 to one hundred and six you got the DNA, you 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.600 could be telling stories for thirty five more years. 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.360 Your sharp Delilah. Yeah, but remember I also had a mother, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.800 are right? It could be It could be a while. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:14.240 But this film, although it's called One Life, it's really 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:19.040 two slices of a year, each more or less out 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.120 of one hundred and six years. The first slice is 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.679 about eighty five years ago, just before the war, and 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.840 that was a nine month period, and the second slice 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.839 was about fifty years later when the story came to 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.559 light and what happened, And I can tell you he 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.360 did so many other things, all of many of them humanitarian, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.280 because he considered it to be part of every person's 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.600 role in life to help others. And you know, as 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.120 a society, we rely on helping each other, and we 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.680 all benefit if we help, however small. You know, even 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.880 just I liked when I talked to schools particularly, I 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:03.080 like to use the story is an opening for a 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.680 whole series of different views on life, one of which 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.679 is to remind students and you, Delilah, that every day 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.040 you change the world, and it may only be in 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.600 small ways. You know, you smile at somebody who's feeling 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.000 a bit depressed, and you think, so what, But you 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.240 have no idea how that may have affected the person 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.240 that you smiled at. They may have been going through 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.439 some torment and inner turmoil, and you've just given them 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.720 a little branch to hang on to rather than sinking. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.280 So there are so many small ways where every day 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.920 we affect the world and we can change it for 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.959 the better. Sometimes they're bigger than others. And my father 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.040 happened to be in a situation where he noticed something 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.520 which he felt needed to be done, and rather than 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.679 sit on the couch and blame others and say they 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.760 should fix it, he was active, and in fact he 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.319 had In one of the letters he wrote in nineteen 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.800 thirty nine, he said that he saw a difference between 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.720 what he called active goodness and passive goodness. He said 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.680 that active goodness meant going out and finding people in 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:20.240 need and helping them, and that just being passive you 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.240 weren't really good at all. You had to be active 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.920 if you wanted to be a good person. So you 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:26.800 can't just avoid doing bad things. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.560 I mean, it all boils down to this, are you 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.800 going to love someone or are you going to be selfish? 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.000 I couldn't put it better. Yeah. 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:39.160 So there's another hero that I connected to in the movie, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:43.319 and that is the character that represented your grandma. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.800 Isn't she great? I've got to talk with one and Carter, 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.000 and she is so sweet and she was so like Grandma. 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.960 I mean I can remember Granny and you know, sitting 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:58.920 on the verandah and talking and yeah, and she identified 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.040 apparently with the role, but because of her heritage. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.520 So tell me about that, Tell me about your grandma, 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.320 and tell me about the actress and her heritage, because 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.840 I was as in love with her watching the movie 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.040 and cheering for her as I was for your father. 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.120 As Anthony Hopkins, who played your father, like, I don't 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.560 think he could have accomplished any of that without her. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.520 It seems like she was the wind beneath his wings. 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.120 She was the touchstone, if you will, that gave him 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.280 the courage like. Never once did she say don't do that, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.760 You can't do that? What are you even thinking? 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:46.400 Yeah, I'm It's one of the few, maybe small artistic 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.160 licenses in the movie that I noticed, is that my 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:55.000 father was a very accomplished typist. And again, when I'm 0:13:55.040 --> 0:14:00.559 talking with children school pupils, I have to remind them 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.800 that typing a letter in nineteen thirty eight thirty nine 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.120 was very different from what you do today. There was 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.839 no word processor, no cut and paste, no templates, no 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.199 spell checkers. You had a big mechanical machine and two 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.840 sheets of paper and a piece of carbon paper, and 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.080 your first draft was your final version. And it was 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.560 slow and error, lots of errors, and he had to 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.600 learn to type and did it very very quickly. But 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.880 she was certainly a great force and a great supporter. 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.280 She came over from Germany when she was quite young 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:46.440 to marry my grandfather. How old I'm thinking early twenties, 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:55.160 and she was quite bright, intelligent. I think she felt 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.320 deprived of a career, although in that era, in the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:05.120 turn of the century, women were not really generally accepted 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:10.760 in any form of work. But she was quite a 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:15.600 force of nature, as the film shows, and I guess 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:19.400 she had a reasonable sense of humor. I mean, I 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.600 thought that Helena Bonham Carter's version was hilarious. I mean, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.720 she had some cracking lines in the film to remind 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.480 the British establishment of some of the core values that 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.000 we claimed to live by. 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:33.320 That was brilliant, I know. 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:38.520 And you know, my father was sent to what in 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.560 England we call a public school, which for some curious 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.480 reason is actually a private school. And he was in 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:50.480 a very renowned school called Stowe in the first year 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.040 that it was established, in the first year it was founded, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.040 and there the headmaster had the intention of, as he 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.680 described it, turning out young men who were in acceptable 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.480 at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck. So he 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.760 wasn't just learning Greek and Latin and all the other 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.360 useful things that you learn at a public school. But 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.400 he was also learning how to be resourceful and entrepreneurial, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.480 which was a great asset to him in most of 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:18.000 his life. 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.920 So the storyline, like you said, it takes on one 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.960 slice out of his life back the year before the 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.120 World War two was declared. It started long before it 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:28.880 was declared. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.640 Well, you declared. It's a little different dates from us. 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.720 I think, yeah, Well, the world decides when they're going 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.160 to declare something, even though it's been going on for 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:40.680 some time. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.120 Right, that's true. 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.400 Let's pretend, let's close our eyes and pretend we don't 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.400 see this. But your why did your dad why did 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.000 he go to Prague in the first place? What was 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.200 the motivation to go to Checkloslovakia? 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:55.280 It is a great question. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.640 He had a career, he was established in his career. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.840 I've been reflecting a lot on his history. He was 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.560 born of German Jewish parents. His father was a banker, 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.000 and he was sent well, I think in those days, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.480 your father told you what your career was going to be. Usually, 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.919 so he started in banking and after school he was 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.000 sent to learn banking in Germany and he was sent 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:32.040 in nineteen thirty thirty one. What an amazing time to 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.879 learn banking, just after the crash of twenty nine, the 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.280 beginning of the depression which affected most of the Western economies. 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.159 In Germany, which was already suffering under the problems from 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.359 the Versaid Treaty, which was by many people reckoned to 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.760 be an unpayable bill for the First World War, and 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:56.199 they had resorted to the only way they could afford 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.920 well that there were three options. They could either default 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:05.720 on paying the bill well, or they could print money, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.120 which is, you know, print the money to pay the bill, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.960 which is what they did. And my father had stories 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.719 like when you sat down in a cafe to have 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:18.200 a coffee or a pastry, you'd pay the bill before 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.360 the coffee came because there was a risk. But by 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.480 the time you'd finished your coffee, the prices would have 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:29.680 gone up because their inflation was so huge. And that's 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.840 the stories you sometimes hear of people with wheelbarrow full 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.200 of notes because the legal tender had become almost worthless 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.520 in the later in the thirties. So this was part 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.600 of the backdrop. I mean, he made friends in Germany, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.199 he had extended family in Germany, so I think he 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.760 probably had a greater sense of what was going on 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:55.199 in Europe than maybe even some of the politicians did. Secondly, 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.000 he was also really interested in politics. He had quite 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.960 a lot of friends in the British Labor Party, which 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.440 is our left wing, the equivalent of your Democrats, and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.520 he was more aware of how they were thinking. And 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.800 he was in touch with a school master called Martin Blake, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:22.280 who he apart from discussing politics, with a company tim 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.280 on school skiing trips. I think really to get a 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.040 free skiing trip in exchange for looking after some of 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:33.640 the kids. And they were great, They were really great friends. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.720 And this year that he was supposed to be doing 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.000 another skiing trip, Martin had phoned him to say, I'm 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.440 We're not doing the skiing trip this year. I've been 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.760 to Prague. I want you to come and see what's 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:49.560 going on here. And so he, instead of going skiing, 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:54.119 went to Prague and then when he saw the reality 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.880 of what was going on, he felt compelled to do something, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.480 and that's what the film explores. 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:11.879 So a hit. His mother was Jewish, correct your grandmother? 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:18.640 His father was German or British German Jewish German. Oh, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.280 both of them because I remember the rabbi asking him 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.960 what are you? What do you consider yourself? 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.640 As well? He was born in London. He was sent 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.600 to a Christian school in England. We have Church of England, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:39.159 which is sort of religion lights. The schools tend to 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.320 have religious services on Sundays and maybe a little lot 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:48.159 of assemblies. He was baptized confirmed. He was brought up 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.359 as an Englishman, and so when he had that conversation 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:59.840 with the rabbi, it un picked kind of a curious 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:06.800 of the Jewish group, which I still find quite interesting 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:11.720 today because there seem to be three different definitions for 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.639 whether you're Jewish. One is because your mum is therefore 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:21.119 you must be, so it's racial. The second is that 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.560 you're a religious jew you have either been born into 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.320 it or converted into it. And the third is what 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.240 i'd call cultural, which is you're not religious, but you're 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.200 part of a synagogue. And they have, in my experience, 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:39.600 amazing community support and outreach programs in a way that 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.040 you know, is really public spirited, I mean, or be 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.080 it in their own community, but it's outstanding. So it 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:48.920 seems to me there are three different ways you could 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:49.959 be called Jewish. 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.239 I loved when the Rabbi was questioning him that you 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:58.280 could see that for him it wasn't a god thing 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.520 or a religious thing at all. It's the right thing. 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.160 Saving children is the right thing to do. 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.240 Yeah, And well turn it around, Delilah, and just for 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.960 a minute, consider a lot of the refugee families were 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.520 well to do. There'd be people like you and me 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:25.200 and you know, lawyers and teachers, medical professionals, and suddenly 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.520 they're homeless because they've been driven out of their homeland 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:31.840 and they're fearing for their lives because they can see 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:38.080 that Hitler blames the Jews for all the ills of 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.960 the Third Reich and Germany. But there are other people 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.199 as well who were standing up against Nazism who were 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.719 also at risk, and they could see that their lives 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.520 were in danger and were trying to get out of Germany, Czechoslovakia, 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.159 that whole area, and some of them, recognizing them it 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.760 might be difficult for them to get out, said is 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:07.120 there anything that we can do about our children? And 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:09.960 maybe we can send them to safety while we try 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:14.760 and get out some other way. How difficult must it be, 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.400 delire to put your four five six year old child 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.800 onto a train to be brought up by strangers that 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.560 you've never met in a country that you've never been to, 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.360 when they speak a language you don't understand. I mean, 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:33.399 it just makes the hairs on the back of my 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:37.400 neck stand up to just think of how traumatic that 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.280 whole period in those people's lives must be. 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:46.119 No. I have six children that are adopted out of 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:47.160 a refugee camp. 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:53.200 Oh Delilah, how wonderful, How congratulations. 0:23:53.440 --> 0:24:03.119 My youngest will be eight next week. Their country was 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:08.080 destroyed by war, never made the news. Nobody even knows 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:13.320 that six hundred thousand people were exterminated. Nobody cares because 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:19.639 it's an African nation, and nobody cares. And their parents 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:25.199 survived the war and fled as children to a refugee 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:31.399 camp in another African nation, Ghana, and I began working 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:36.560 there in two thousand and four. There's nothing more important 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:38.720 to me than saving kids. 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:41.880 Yeah, and. 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:45.119 I can never do what your dad did, but I 0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:46.200 can do what I can do. 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:49.359 This is I find this the whole story of my 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:53.720 father challenging in so many different ways. When you consider 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:59.480 the sheer number of refugee children, you think that this 0:24:59.560 --> 0:25:04.160 is complete, insoluble the problem is so big that nobody 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.800 can deal with it, and then you know, so maybe 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.359 if it's too big, we shouldn't try. And my father, 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:14.399 knowing it was big, said well, I am going to try. 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:19.040 And okay, he saved less than a half, quite a 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:20.960 lot less than a half of the children that were 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:23.840 in danger. But for the ones who were saved, it's 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:26.280 the whole life. It's not like you get a bit saved. 0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:28.960 You are either are the lucky one. And if you're 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:31.280 the lucky one, even if it's just one, you would 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:32.200 be so grateful. 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.840 The end of the movie, when your mother and father 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:40.479 invited some of the children to come to their house, 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:42.240 did that really happen? 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:47.720 Yeah, Verira was She lived not that far away, and 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:52.200 yeah she was great fun and we had quite a 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:58.760 few parties where the children came. But although they came 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:01.840 originally to England, many of them traveled to other parts 0:26:01.840 --> 0:26:05.359 of the world later. And one of the great friends 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:10.280 my father had was in Toronto. What's extraordinaries how many 0:26:10.320 --> 0:26:14.600 of them made huge contributions to the world. They weren't 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:18.520 just passengers. Many of them were right at the top 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:25.879 of their chosen profession, either in medicine or psychiatry or science, 0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:31.560 or politics or filmmaking, and the one in Toronto. Joe 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:36.239 Slessinger was an award winning war correspondent and he and 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.120 my father were like brothers. It was just so wonderful 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:43.920 when they reconnected. I mean say reconnected when they connected, 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:47.200 because for fifty years my father didn't know anything about 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:49.080 any of them. He just got on with his life. 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:56.040 But when he met Joe Slessinger, they were just adorable together. 0:26:56.240 --> 0:26:57.480 They had a terrific time. 0:26:57.680 --> 0:27:04.080 It was wonderful to seeing a fascinating conversation with Nick Winton, junior, 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:09.359 son of Sir Nicholas Winton, who was instrumental in evacuating 0:27:09.520 --> 0:27:13.880 six hundred and sixty nine children to safety. 0:27:13.520 --> 0:27:17.640 During the Second World War. We've got more to talk about, 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:19.800 but I want to pause for a moment and give 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:24.960