In the early hours of Saturday 1 July 1939, 10-yearold Věra Diamantová was jerked suddenly awake. Her train had lurched roughly across a railway junction on its way out of Czechoslovakia (today divided between the Czech Republic and Slovakia). As Vera’s eyes adjusted to the pitch-dark carriage, she could just make out some of the other 240 children, mostly Jewish and aged 3–15, crammed in around her. Sitting next to Vera was six-year-old Alfred, who recalled years later that, when leaving the Czech capital of Prague, “I was aware of my mother’s nervousness, but I did not understand the reason why… for me it was a holiday trip and a tremendous adventure.”
The children aboard that train came from widely different backgrounds and had very little in common – except that almost none of them would ever see their parents again. They were among 669 children who, between 14 March and 2 August 1939, left behind their families in Czechoslovakia and were evacuated to England thanks to a small group of individuals headed by Nicholas Winton.
Born in 1909 to German Jewish parents, Winton grew up in north London, where his family suffered ostracism because of their Jewish heritage. They lived there in an enormous 20-roomed house that was managed by four members of staff including a cook and a nanny. “We weren’t, by any means, rich… our class was, I suppose, moderately middle class,” Winton later reflected.