“In 1988, a British program revealed a moving and little-known story. That of a man who saved hundreds of children from the Nazi dictatorship”. Here is the pitchA lifea moving film by James Hawes released in 2023 and broadcast Tuesday December 17, 2024 at 9:11 p.m. on Canal+. The feature film looks back on life, courage, but also a particularly touching event for Nicholas Winton, an English broker who died in 2015 at the age of 106. More than seven decades earlier, he made history by organizing the rescue of 669 children in Prague, just before the start of the Second World War. An act of bravery which sometimes earned him the nickname “British Schindler”.
Why did Anthony Hopkins agree to play Nicholas Winton?
“It may seem strange to say that this story affects me personally, because I obviously did not participate in the Holocaust, but I remember the war […] I remember the damage caused by the bombs. This period of history encompasses my own life. It is part of my consciousness”confided Anthony Hopkins, who lends his features to Nicholas Winton in the film, in comments reported by the Los Angeles Times in March 2024. This is at the request of Barbara Winton (who died during filming), author of If It’s Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Wintona book about his father, which the actor agreed to play the role. He is therefore Nicholas Winton at the end of the 80s, while Johnny Flynn plays his younger version, in 1938. The film, which draws parallels between these two eras, goes back in time to this moment when, on a visit to Prague , Winton discovers that thousands of children are living in refugee camps after fleeing the Nazis. Even if, at this time, everyone still does not know what is going to happen, he decides to act and move hundreds of children to save their lives… The director has researched extensively to give life to his film. And if he tried to tell as many truths as possible, he also invited the families of the children saved by Winton to participate in the famous BBC studio scene. Which almost 50 accepted.
Who was Nicholas Winton, part of whose life is told in the film A life ?
The film therefore pays a fabulous tribute to this man who did not wish to be in the light. However, thanks to him, hundreds of Czechoslovak Jewish children, whom he had taken care to photograph and catalog, had their lives saved. At the time a stockbroker, Nicholas Winton felt the tide turning, set up an organization and got involved with the Czech Kindertransport, calling on the State, the media and families to welcome all these displaced children. He fought to obtain visas for them and organized convoys between Prague and London. He will not tell anyone about these facts. It was in 1988 that his wife Grete discovered documents in their house. The rest, the film tells it very well: Winton is invited twice on the television show That’s Life on BBC One. Presenter Esther Rantzen then reveals the lists, the photos, and reveals that several of the rescued children are in the studio, all around the one who orchestrated everything. Who immediately burst into tears at this unexpected tribute to his saving act. At the end of his life, the man received several distinctions, and was even knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003, then honored by the Czech Republic in 2014. Despite the recognition granted to him, the British Schindler (nicknamed thus in reference to the German Oskar Schindler who saved around 1,200 Jews during the Second World War) has always paid tribute to those who participated in this effort which was in fact collective: Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick, Nicholas Stopford, Beatrice Wellington, Josephine Pike and Bill Barazetti. May their names never be forgotten.
