[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 583 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 583

Recognizing the remarkable example of Sir Nicholas Winton who organized 
the rescue of 669 Jewish Czechoslovakian children from Nazi death camps 
                 prior to the outbreak of World War II.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 27, 2007

Mr. Klein of Florida (for himself, Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida, 
Mr. Lantos, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, Mr. Rothman, Ms. Watson, Ms. Carson, Mr. 
      Ackerman, Mr. Hastings of Florida, Mr. Meek of Florida, Mr. 
 Faleomavaega, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina, Mr. Wexler, Mr. Burton of 
Indiana, Mr. Engel, Mr. Moran of Kansas, Mr. Inglis of South Carolina, 
Ms. Kilpatrick, Mr. Ryan of Ohio, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Waxman, Mr. Schiff, 
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Inslee, 
   Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Hodes, Mr. Braley of Iowa, Mr. Loebsack, Mr. 
McNerney, Mr. Ellsworth, Ms. Sutton, Mr. Wilson of Ohio, Mr. Mahoney of 
Florida, Mr. Welch of Vermont, Mr. Walz of Minnesota, Mr. Yarmuth, Mr. 
 Kagen, Mr. Carney, Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, and Mr. Nadler) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
                           on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Recognizing the remarkable example of Sir Nicholas Winton who organized 
the rescue of 669 Jewish Czechoslovakian children from Nazi death camps 
                 prior to the outbreak of World War II.

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;
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;
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
    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.
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