Holocaust This article is more than 8 years oldLettersForgotten heroes of the kindertransports
This article is more than 8 years oldNicholas Winton deserves all the praise he has received, but when your obituary (2 July) states that he “modestly insisted” that Trevor Chadwick was the real hero, he may well have just been saying what he believed. It was Chadwick who was stationed in Prague and had to select the children (the British guarantors who paid £50 for the privilege mostly wanted girls aged seven to 10 and, if possible, fair-haired) and organised their travel, at first by plane, later by train. It was he who, on one occasion, when the Home Office made no effort to supply the necessary papers in the limited timeframe, was forced to find someone to forge documents to enable the children to leave. He even managed to save some adults, smuggled through as “leaders”. The risks to himself can be imagined.
He and his colleague, Doreen Warriner, stayed in Prague from December 1938 until the end of June 1939 when they realised the Gestapo were on their trail and they had to leave in a hurry. Unfortunately Chadwick was not the heroic type, the black sheep of a conservative Christian family, who had a chequered subsequent life and career, at one point joining the RAF where he was both court-martialled and (later) promoted. It is sad that he and Doreen Warriner are largely forgotten. I certainly owe my life to Chadwick. He was persuaded to bring my mother, aged 14, with him when he first returned from Prague bringing back two boys on behalf of the school in Swanage where he taught.
Guy Phelps
Waterlooville, Hampshire
It was indeed heartening to read about about Sir Nicholas Winton, and how he masterminded eight trains of Jewish children from Prague in 1939.
But he was not alone. My mother, Mrs Florence Nankivell, masterminded the very first train of Jewish children to safety, this one from Berlin in the centre of the Nazi world, where she was hassled by Nazi police. A Protestant priest who was to accompany her fled in fear before the outgoing train entered Germany. After collecting the children, her train went from Berlin through the Netherlands to the Hook then across to Harwich, where the foster parents were waiting. Of all the excellent things she did in her life, this pioneering “Kindertransport” as it was called, is the thing I am most proud of.
Edmund Nankivell
Hassocks, West Sussex
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