On October 28, 2015 it will be 50 years since the seminal document, Nostra Aetate, was pronounced by Pope Paul VI. One cannot overemphasize the significance of Nostre Aetate to the relationship between Jews and Christians. Prior to this time Christian teaching portrayed Jews as archaic and rejected by God, obsessed by observance of the law […]
In the winter of 1938 a young British stockbroker decided to forego a skiing vacation in favor of helping Czech refugees fleeing the Germans. Nicholas Winton would go on to organize eight trainloads of mostly Jewish children bringing them to safety in Britain. A total of 669 children were rescued, and the story only became public […]
In May 1939 Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who engineered the rescue of nearly 700 Czech children, wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt asking for America to take in refugee children. Many of these children’s families would be deported to ghettos and death camps. National Archives Archivist David Langbart wrote a post in the Archives’ blog, “The Text […]
There are a number of excellent videos about Sir Nicholas Winton’s successful 1938 effort to rescue 669 Czech Children including a feature-length film “Nicky’s Children” produced by Czech and Slovak film studios; a “60 Minutes” interview with Sir Nicholas which aired in 2014, as well as a three-minute additional coverage on Winton’s letter to FDR asking […]
With the blockbuster film “Selma” currently in theaters, this is a good opportunity to learn about Selma’s Jewish community and what it was like to live there during the Civil Right’s crisis.