Susanne Medas was luckier than most to be saved by Sir Nicholas Winton. When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, she was 15 years and 11 months old — just a month younger than the age limit to be evacuated.
But not only did she make it onto a train bound for London, she was the first of the 669 Nicky’s Children to meet the man responsible for saving them.
Sir Nicholas’s mother Barbara volunteered to take care of the teenage girls brought from Czechoslovakia, and Mrs Medas was at her flat in north-west London when he paid a visit in 1940.
“He was working as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in France, and he was going into Vichy France and rescuing people — Jews and others — who were caught there and taking them back to free France in the north.”
Mrs Medas said that the decision to act, taken by the stockbroker from Maidenhead shortly after he visited Prague for three weeks, was a “remarkable gift”.
Are you one of Nicky’s children? — Or a friend or relative with details? email us at nickyschildren@thejc.com or call 020 7415 1639
“How many young men would think of this possibility? What happened in Czechoslovakia happened so quickly, but Nicholas Winton had this idea: something’s got to be done for the children.”
“I have four sons of my own and I can’t even think of one of them wanting to be involved in a situation like that.”
