At the age of seven, Alexandra Pfeifer was taken by her father and two brothers to Prague railway station, and told she was going on holiday. “I didn’t know where or why I was going. I didn’t know there was a place called England. I waved to my brothers out of the window when the train left the station,” she said.
This week, 92-year-old Alexandra Greensted – her married name – returned to Prague to honour the man who organised the rescue of hundreds of Jewish children, including herself, from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 on the “Kindertransport”.
A new street in the Czech capital has been named after Nicholas Winton, who relentlessly cajoled and shamed immigration authorities to provide visas for 669 children, sparing them the horrors of the Holocaust. Greensted’s father and brothers were later murdered in Auschwitz.
Jan Čižinský, the mayor of the Prague district through which the street runs, spoke of Winton’s “heroism, courage and humility”. When complete, the street will pass by the railway station and memorials to “the dark side of world history”.
The naming of the street coincides with the 85th anniversary of the last planned Kindertransport from Prague, which was prevented from departing due to the outbreak of the second world war. The 250 children onboard the train were deported to Nazi concentration camps; two survived the war.
Winton’s heroic actions were depicted in a recent film, One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins. The former stockbroker, who was knighted in 2003 and nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2008, died in 2015 at the age of 106.
Among those attending the naming ceremony in Prague on Tuesday were four surviving “Winton children”, members of Winton’s family, and a delegation from the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR).
Michael Newman, the chief executive of the AJR, said: “It is hugely symbolic that [Winton’s] endeavours are recognised and celebrated as well as to acknowledge the heroism of many others with whom he worked.
“In remembering Sir Nicholas, we also honour the parents who sent away their children to an uncertain future as well as the foster families who gave sanctuary to the youngest victims of Nazi oppression. It is our fervent hope that the salvation of the Kindertransport will never again be needed.”
Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, who was put on a Kindertransport at the age of nine with her three-year-old sister, said it was “deeply moving” to attend the naming ceremony. She and other “Kinder” were “filled with pride to pay tribute to our saviour and a great sadness for those we had to leave behind”.
Grenfell-Baines, now 94, told the Guardian that she had no memory of the journey from Prague to Liverpool Street station in London on the last Kindertransport to leave the Czech capital. “But I still have the label I wore, with the number 641 and my name,” she said.
She has been told by others that her sister was completely silent throughout the journey. “I must have looked after her, but I don’t remember anything.” Having her own family brought home the “enormous courage it took for parents to put their children on a train”.
Winton’s actions in 1939 were unacknowledged until television personality Esther Rantzen brought together dozens of “Kinder”, their children and grandchildren with Winton for a remarkable episode of That’s Life in 1988.
“If it wasn’t for Esther Rantzen, none of this would be known,” said Grenfell-Baines. She has proposed a bench dedicated to Rantzen, who has terminal cancer, be placed on the newly-named Prague street. “[Winton] had never really talked about it, he felt it was just a job done. There aren’t many of us [Kinder] left, but he’ll always be in our memories.”
Greensted, whose mother died when she was a few weeks old, said she was “very upset and crying a lot” on arrival at Liverpool Street station. She was met by a clergyman who escorted her to her new foster family. He later wrote in a letter that she had been “cold and miserable”, and he had difficulty in communicating with her as she spoke only Czech.
The naming of the street after Winton was “wonderful” as he would “never be forgotten”, Greensted said. Last year, she applied to the country of her birth for citizenship, but was refused. She is now appealing. “I am hopeful this will be allowed and I can return to Prague once again as a Czech citizen.”
