One Life (2023) dramatises the true story of Nicholas Winton, a London stockbroker who rescued 669 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938–39. Directed by James Hawes and starring Anthony Hopkins, the film reveals a humanitarian feat hidden for nearly fifty years.
From Stockbroker to Saviour
Born Nicholas George Wertheim on 19 May 1909 in Hampstead, London, to German-Jewish parents who converted to Christianity and anglicised their name, Winton worked as a stockbroker until December 1938, when he cancelled a skiing holiday to visit Prague at the request of friend Martin Blake, a British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC) associate.
The visit followed the Munich Agreement (which ceded the Sudetenland to Germany) and Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), during which 91 Jews were killed, 30,000 arrested, and 267 synagogues destroyed. In Prague, Winton found thousands of refugees – mostly Jewish families – in overcrowded camps with minimal shelter, food, or medical care. The BCRC, led by Doreen Warriner, focused on relocating adults, but Winton saw that children faced greater peril. He decided to act.
The Czech Kindertransport
After Kristallnacht, the British government relaxed immigration restrictions to admit unaccompanied Jewish children from Germany and Austria under the Kindertransport programme, which eventually brought some 10,000 children to Britain. Winton lobbied for Czech children to be included, securing permission on strict conditions: each child required a British host family willing to care for them until age 18 and a financial guarantee of £50 per child (approximately £3,500 today).
From a London office, Winton and volunteers – including his mother, Barbara – raised funds, secured foster placements, and navigated bureaucratic maze of visas and travel permits. Between March and August 1939, eight Kindertransport trains departed Prague for London, carrying 669 children. The largest convoy, 241 children, left on 1 July 1939.
A ninth train carrying 250 more children was halted on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war. Those children never survived the Holocaust. The failure to save them haunted Winton for life.
Silence and Revelation
After the war, Winton returned to finance, worked for the International Refugee Organisation and Red Cross, married Danish refugee Grete Gjelstrup in 1948, and settled in Maidenhead, Berkshire. For nearly fifty years, he kept his wartime efforts secret, even from his family.
In 1988, Grete discovered a forgotten scrapbook in their attic containing photographs, lists, and correspondence documenting the rescue. The revelation led to one of British television’s most poignant moments: an appearance on BBC’s That’s Life!, where host Esther Rantzen filled the studio audience with dozens of the now-adult survivors he had saved, along with their children and grandchildren.
The visibly moved Winton, surrounded by the living evidence of his courage, became known as the “British Schindler” – a moniker he deflected: “Why are you making such a big deal out of it? I just helped a little; I was in the right place at the right time.”
Later Honours and Death
Winton was knighted in 2003 for “services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.” The Czech Republic awarded him the Order of the White Lion, its highest honour, in 2014. A statue stands at Maidenhead railway station, the Kindertransport departure point.
He died on 1 July 2015, aged 106 – exactly 76 years after the largest transport he organised had departed Prague.
One Life: From Page to Screen
Based on Barbara Winton’s 2022 biography If It’s Not Impossible… The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, the film alternates between two timelines: 29-year-old Winton (Johnny Flynn) racing to save children in 1938–39 and 79-year-old Winton (Hopkins) grappling with survivor’s guilt in 1988 before the That’s Life! reunion.
Helena Bonham Carter plays Winton’s mother, Lena Olin his wife Grete, with Jonathan Pryce and Romola Garai supporting. Produced by See-Saw Films, BBC Films, Cross City Films, FilmNation Entertainment, and MBK Entertainment, filming took place in London and Prague.
Box Office and Reception
One Life premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2023, with UK release on 1 January 2024 (Warner Bros.) and US release on 15 March 2024 (Bleecker Street). It grossed $56.4 million worldwide – $12.7 million in the UK and $13 million in France – and won the Cinema for Peace Dove for Most Valuable Film of the Year 2024.
Critics praised Hopkins’s restrained performance but noted the film’s conventional approach. The Guardian called it a “stirring tale… predictably told,” while The Telegraph described Hopkins as “stirring as the ‘British Schindler.’”
Legacy
Winton’s story demonstrates the impact one individual can have against institutional inertia. While governments debated and borders closed, a 29-year-old stockbroker compiled lists, raised funds, and negotiated visas – saving 669 lives and creating thousands of descendants who might never have existed.
The Kindertransport programme as a whole rescued approximately 10,000 children, but Winton’s Czech operation remains distinct for its grassroots origins and the logistical obstacles overcome by a private citizen without official backing. His decades of silence and the scrapbook’s discovery add moral complexity, raising questions about heroism, modesty, and the stories history chooses to remember.
For more on wartime rescue operations, read our analysis of the Kindertransport programme and its lasting impact on British immigration policy. To explore other inspiring true stories adapted for cinema, see our roundup of the best historical dramas of the past decade.
