Nicholas Winton was working as a stockbroker in London in 1938. In December, he was about to fly to Switzerland on a skiing holiday. But a friend, Martin Blake, asked him to change his plans and come to Prague.

 

“And don’t bring your skiis.”

 

Little did Winton know then he was about to rescue 669 Jewish children, and most remarkably, in the decades after, he almost never spoke about it.