Sir Nicholas Winton’s daughter Barbara dies, aged 69
Barbara was the biographer for her famous father, who rescued hundreds of Jewish children before the war in 1939. She has been heralded as a “fearless campaigner in her own right”.
Tributes have been paid to Sir Nicholas Winton’s daughter Barbara after news was announced this week that she had died.
Barbara Winton was the biographer for her famous father, who rescued hundreds of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia before the war in 1939 and was heralded as a “fearless campaigner in her own right” by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR).
Nicholas Winton was a young investment banker when, over Christmas 1938, he went to see what help he could offer in Prague, rather than go skiing as planned. Over the next nine months he organised the evacuation of 669 children, most Jewish, in an operation later known as the Kindertransport.
Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain, but never spoke about his wartime exploits thereafter, until they were revealed in 1988 by TV presenter Esther Rantzen in a now-famous episode of That’s Life.
Barbara, who was most recently outspoken in her disgust at the British Government’s policy of sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda, described herself as “supporting today’s refugees while talking about yesterday’s”.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, AJR said Barbara had continued her father’s legacy by contributing to events including by launching the Sir Nicholas Winton website, an online archive chronicling his remarkable life.
“It was with great sadness that we heard of Barbara Winton’s passing,” AJR said, adding that she was “a tireless advocate for the plight of modern-day refugees and a fearless campaigner for the oppressed and displaced… While she helped to spread awareness of her father’s endeavours, she was, in her own right, a principled voice of reason unafraid to speak truth to power.”
Nicknamed ‘the British Schindler,’ Sir Nicholas died in 2015, at the age of 106. He is due to be played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in a major film biopic called ‘One Life’ to be released next year.
In 2016, a year after Jewish News successfully championed a Royal Mail stamp to honour Sir Nicholas, Barbara addressed the UN Holocaust Memorial Day in New York. A year later, at the 2017 Limmud festival, she talked to British Jews about the impact and effect of her father’s heroic work.
In 2019, she took part in a panel discussion to mark the first anniversary of the opening of the Holocaust Education and Learning Centre at the University of Huddersfield, and a year later, together with the son of fellow wartime humanitarian Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, she opened a new exhibit on the Kindertransport at the Imperial War Museum in London.
More recently, she fully supported the British Jewish community’s efforts to house Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, hailing the “terrific initiative… using the 1939 Kindertransport as a precedent”.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.