Holocaust survivors gathered in Prague this week to honor Sir Nicholas Winton, the hero behind the Kindertransport, by naming a new street after him. The Kindertransport, a British initiative, saved the lives of more than 10,000 German and Austrian Jewish children, who fled Nazi persecution to London unaccompanied.
It also ensured the escape of 169 mostly Jewish children from occupied Czechoslovakia. The new street, located in the Holešovice area of Prague 7, was named through a collaboration between the municipal district and the Memorial of Silence at Bubny Station, the departure point for transports that carried tens of thousands of Prague’s Jewish residents to Nazi ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps.
The naming of the new street coincides with the 85th anniversary of the last planned Winton train, which was intended to carry children to safety but was tragically halted by the outbreak of World War II on that very day. The children who were supposed to be on that train were later forced to board Deutsche Bahn trains at Bubny Station, which deported them to Nazi concentration camps.
* Ynet contributed to the article.