I believe my role in life is to spread my father´s story

How did you feel about accepting the invitation from Masaryk University as the main guest of this year’s Masaryk Days?

I was pleased. At the same time, when the organizers asked me to give a talk as part of the program, I explained: But I’m not an expert in security and defense. And they replied: No, but there are certain parallels between what your father experienced and the present day. It will be valuable to hear how the two of you spoke about it.

What do you think your father would say about the conference theme, Security in a Dangerous World?

I think he would be very saddened by the direction the world has taken in the ten years since his death. Over roughly the past 25 years, it seems that the relative stability of the post-war order has gradually been breaking down, and the world is becoming less and less stable.

We have the example of September 11, when Article 5 of NATO was activated for the first—and so far only—time by the United States, and we were all supposed to fight in the war on terror against some unnamed organization in the Middle East. A few years later came the great financial crisis, when many countries accumulated enormous debts to keep their economies running.

Other tragedies followed—the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the eurozone debt crisis. I think all these events contributed to weakening trust in major institutions. Then came 2014 and Crimea. We spoke about these things together—about the echoes of Hitler’s policy: we’ll take a small piece and no one will fight us. Then we’ll take another piece and hope that again no one intervenes. All of this led to an erosion of trust in major institutions and governments, which created space for the rise of nationalism. Today we see it all around the world.

Do you think the world today still needs new Wintons—people who will perform a courageous act at the right moment?

But we are all Wintons! Every one of us. I am nothing special, and neither was my father. Yet every one of us is extraordinary. All it takes is believing in yourself and starting to do what you believe is right.

Sometimes it requires courage at the beginning. Often we are paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake or looking foolish, or of being criticized by others. At that moment we may lose touch with our values and start to think we have no power. The government will solve it for us—that’s its job. But it is important never to stop believing that each person can change something, even in a small way.

But if each of us did a small thing… Sometimes I use a comparison that may not be as well known in the Czech Republic. At the beginning of the Second World War, the British army suffered a huge defeat and it became necessary to evacuate soldiers from Dunkirk. The beach was shallow and large ships could not come close. Ordinary people with small boats from the south coast of England were mobilized; they crossed the Channel and helped bring the soldiers off the beach.

If we had waited for the government to solve it, they would all have been dead. First the ships would have had to be designed, built, and deployed—it would have taken years, and the rescue would have come too late. It is a reminder that many individuals acting together can achieve enormous change. We should never be discouraged by the thought that this isn’t something for me and that I cannot change anything. If you say that—and everyone else says it too—nothing will happen. But together we have tremendous power to change things.

Do you see this as the main message we should all take from your father’s story?

I think so. My father used to say: It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. When you see that something needs to be done, roll up your sleeves and do it.

You see, my cousins and my father’s nephews also knew him, but I was the only one who grew up with him. In the last years of his life I moved back in with him while he was still very communicative, and we had wonderful conversations. Even though we had different political views, he raised me according to his values.

And in the end, it is values that matter. He always said that ethics are more important than religion. Similarly, values are probably more important than politics. What matters is what you truly believe and what guides you—not whether you vote red, blue, or green, nor whether you pray facing west or east.

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What has it been like for you to live with the name Nicholas Winton? Have you always felt it as an advantage, or sometimes as a burden?

That’s a very good question. I would very much like to achieve something of my own that would have such an impact that people would think I am exceptional. But I grew up in a family where being useful to society is simply a way of life. It’s nothing extraordinary. I realize that I have been given this amazing story of my father, and that it is probably my role in life to spread it further.

In what way was your father different from the image the public has of him?

Especially in the Czech Republic he is seen as a hero. The British public, however, knows almost nothing about him. Occasionally, when you show people the recording from the BBC program That’s Life!, they remember it, but they don’t know exactly who he is. Even for my father it always felt a little inappropriate when people in the Czech Republic welcomed him with such warmth. He felt he didn’t deserve that level of attention.

He always explained that the rescue operation journalists like to attribute to him was a team effort. Perhaps he was the initiator, the one who started the project, but in Prague there were people working in far greater danger than he was—organizing the handover of the children, arranging the transports, and dealing with the Gestapo over the documents. That is why he always felt a little uncomfortable when only he was singled out.

It is also rather strange that he became famous for a project that took only nine months of his life—nine months out of 106 years. He did many other things, took part in building some post-war international organizations, and had many other activities.

Are you in contact with the rescued children, whom you jokingly call your “669 brothers and sisters”?

With some of them, yes. But fewer and fewer of those who were rescued are still alive. So now I often meet the second generation as well—their children and grandchildren. For example, last October I met Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines and her sister Eva again during the Meeting Brno event. I hope both of them will return to Brno again in May for the Sudeten German Convention in cooperation with the Meeting Brno festival.

We also meet quite often in England, most frequently at events at the Czech Embassy in London. I am also friends with Anita Gross, whose father was on one of the transports. From time to time I also see Lord Alf Dubs, an amazing person who serves in the British House of Lords and continues tirelessly to fight for the rights of refugees.

What is the driving force behind your work?

I have two motivations. The first is to encourage people to get involved in what is happening in the world and to realize their own power—perhaps through my father’s story and my own. The second is to earn money to pay my rent.

One of the “adventures” of my life is that I have lost all my money twice. The first time was after the crisis in 1989, when the business I had founded and run went bankrupt. And recently, when I had managed to secure my finances again, I lost them because of unfortunate investments in a fraudulent real-estate project.

Today I live in rented accommodation and have no pension, because I was once told I would probably never live long enough to receive one. When I was forty, doctors discovered a brain tumor and suggested that I would not live long. I survived, and in a way it was actually a kind of “good fortune” for me, because it happened while I was still young. But it reminded me that life is not something you can plan with certainty. It is unpredictable.

The sun will almost certainly rise tomorrow, but you yourself may not wake up. Today I am over seventy, and I notice things I did not pay attention to before. One of them is the regret that I did not ask my parents more questions. When you are young, you take many things for granted—until something goes wrong.

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What’s coming up for you in the near future?

In two weeks I’m flying to New York for a week, then to Seattle for another week, where I’ll be giving lectures. After that I’ll return home for a short break, then I’ll get on my motorcycle and ride back to Brno for the Sudeten German Convention I already mentioned. I’ll combine that with a holiday in Bratislava, Vienna, and Prague.

Can you count how many times you’ve visited the Czech Republic in your life?

I came here many times with my father when he was still alive. Those visits became very dear to me, and I wanted to learn more about your country—about its creativity, its artists, and its culture. And when I got married, my wife and I decided to have our wedding in Prague. Even though she is French and I am English, we agreed that Prague would be the perfect place.

At the same time it also had a personal meaning for me, because my father had already been gone for several years by then. Although he had met my wife before, some time passed before we got married. So on that occasion we were able to invite our friends, who had come for the wedding, to the railway platform where my father had once been welcomed, and I was able to symbolically introduce him there to my wife. It was very moving.