H. Res. 583 

In the House of Representatives, U. S., 

September 17, 2007. 

Whereas during the Holocaust, in which some 6,000,000 

Jews were brutally put to death by the Government of 

Nazi Germany, a small number of individuals risked their 

lives and spent fortunes to save the lives of others because they were decent and courageous men and women 

of principle; 

Whereas, in October 1938, the Nazi Government occupied the 

Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, which resulted in 

tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the occupied 

areas and seeking safety in the areas of as-yet unoccupied Czechoslovakia; 

Whereas, in late 1938, a 29-year-old British businessman, 

Nicholas Winton, was encouraged by a friend at the British Embassy in Prague to forgo a ski vacation in the 

Alps to visit Prague and see first-hand the freezing refugee camps filled with Jewish families who had fled the 

Sudetenland; 

Whereas, in the face of this enormous suffering, Winton, 

moved by feelings of deep compassion, undertook a massive effort to help the children of many of these Jewish 

families escape these horrible circumstances, though at 

that time neither he nor they knew the full extent of the 

horrors that awaited them; 
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•HRES 583 EH 

Whereas Winton sought to find friendly governments which 

would grant asylum to these Jewish refugee children, and 

his efforts were rebuffed by the countries whose help he 

requested, until the Governments of Sweden and the 

United Kingdom agreed to accept children from the 

Czechoslovakian refugee camps; 

Whereas Winton and other volunteers gathered names and 

other information on children whose parents recognized 

the importance of getting their children beyond the reach 

of the Nazi Government, and Winton was able to use this 

information to identify foster homes for these refugee 

children; 

Whereas Winton took the lead in raising funds to pay for the 

transportation of the children from Prague to Britain 

and Sweden and to pay an enormous government-imposed fee to cover the costs of future repatriation; 

Whereas, on March 14, 1939, the first 20 children left 

Prague under Winton’s auspices, and the very next day 

the Nazi army overran the remainder of un-occupied 

Czechoslovakia; 

Whereas the heroic effort of Winton and other volunteers to 

assist these young children flee occupied Czechoslovakia 

continued for over six months until the outbreak of 

World War II on September 1, 1939, during which time 

669 children were able to leave in a total of eight separate groups; 

Whereas the ninth group of some 250 children was scheduled 

to leave Prague on September 3, 1939, but was halted 

following the outbreak of hostilities, and none of these 

250 children lived to see the end of World War II six 

years later; 
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Whereas this group of 669 children, saved through the efforts 

of Winton and his collaborators, includes doctors, nurses, 

teachers, musicians, artists, writers, pilots, ministers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and a Member of the 

British Parliament, and today they and their children 

and grandchildren and great-grandchildren number over 

5,000 individuals, and these individuals live in the United 

States, Canada, Australia, the Czech Republic, Britain, 

Germany, and other countries; 

Whereas Winton’s achievement went unrecognized and 

unacknowledged for more than half a century until his 

wife, who knew nothing of this life-saving work, came 

across an old leather briefcase in an attic in which she 

found lists of the children, letters from their parents and 

other materials documenting his efforts; 

Whereas, of the 15,000 Czechoslovakian Jewish children who 

fled to refugee camps or who were forced into concentration camps during the Nazi occupation, only a handful 

survived World War II, and Vera Gissing, one of the children saved by Winton and the author of the script for 

the film ‘‘Nicholas Winton—the Power of Good’’, which 

won the Emmy Award in 2002, said that Winton ‘‘rescued the greater part of the Jewish children of my generation in Czechoslovakia. Very few of us met our parents 

again: they perished in concentration camps. Had we not 

been spirited away, we would have been murdered alongside them.’’; and 

Whereas Winton has been honored with the title of Member 

of the British Empire (MBE), was awarded the Freedom 

of the City of Prague, received the Czech Order of T. G. 

Masaryk, and was given a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for services to humanity: Now, therefore, be it 
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Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

(1) commends Sir Nicholas Winton and those British and Czechoslovakian citizens who worked with him, 

for their remarkable persistence and selfless courage in 

saving the lives of 669 Czechoslovakian Jewish children 

in the months before the outbreak of World War II; and 

(2) urges men and women everywhere to recognize 

in Winton’s remarkable humanitarian effort the difference that one devoted principled individual can make 

in changing and improving the lives of others. 

Attest: 

Clerk.