PRAGUE — A vintage train carrying people who escaped the Holocaust as children is steaming from Prague to London to mark the 70th anniversary of mass evacuations of children from Czechoslovakia.
Sir Nicholas Winton, a Briton, arranged eight trains to carry 669 mostly Jewish children through Germany to Britain at the outbreak of World War II to prevent them from being sent to Nazi concentration camps.
Now 100 years old, Winton will be in London on Friday to greet the train’s 170 passengers, including 22 he saved.
One of them was Hana Franklova, 78. She said today before boarding the train that she expected a highly emotional experience, and called the event “a miracle.”
A statue of Winton was unveiled at Prague’s central station before the train left.
Meanwhile, Britain has held a service of thanksgiving to remember the thousands of children who were evacuated to the countryside to protect them from German bombs during World War II.
Hundreds of people gathered in London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral for today’s service.
According to the Imperial War Museum, over 1.8 million British schoolchildren, vulnerable people and mothers with babies were evacuated in the first four days of September 1939. Evacuations continued throughout much of the war.
For some children, the wrench of leaving home was mitigated by new experiences.
Derrick Finch, now 77, left Essex for rural Cornwall. There, he says he “discovered the sea. I discovered that milk didn’t come from bottles but from cows.”
Still, Finch described lining up to be selected by a host family as just “awful.”
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