One Life

 

This is an important story that needs to be told as some parts of humanity seem to be unable to stop repeating the errors of past generations. The story is about a 29 year-old English stockbroker, Nicky Winton played by Johnny Flynn and also Anthony Hopkins as a 79 year-old Winton. The film flicks between 1938 and 1978. Winton was the son of German-Jewish parents who fled Germany because of rising anti-Jewish sentiments and settled in London. 

Hearing of the plight of refugees and Jews fleeing the advancing Nazis, Winton travels to Prague in Czechoslovakia to see for himself. Winton is so gripped by the desperate plight of the people that he formulates a plan to rescue as many of the children as he can. The children will travel by train with visas to enter Britain and be placed with foster families until they can return home. With bureaucratic hurdles and no resources other than determination, it seems an impossible task.

Winton works through the offices of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia who put him in touch with a Prague Rabi who has a list of the most vulnerable and at risk Jewish children attached to his synagogue. Slowly Winton earns the trust of the people and sets about gathering information to enable visa applications to be made. Meanwhile his mother Babette (Helena Bonham Carter) is tasked with tackling the government department processing visa applications which of course with war imminent, is overrun with applicants.

Fifty years on and Winton's house is filled with archive boxes full of photos and papers from the operation which successfully ran eight trains from Prague to London and rescued 669 children whose fate otherwise would certainly have been transportation to Nazi concentration camps. In the bottom drawer of his desk is a briefcase which he at first is unable to even touch, let alone 'deal with' as his wife Greta (Lena Olin) constantly urges him to do. Greta goes away to visit their daughter who is about to produce the first grandchild and this acts a catalyst for Winton to burn all the archive boxes and eventually reveal what is in the briefcase.

I won't spoil anything of how the story unfolds and flicks between the two time periods. This is a compelling story, well told with very good performances especially from Hopkins and  Bonham Carter. Tissues will be needed. For me, the irony of the story is being played out on our TV screens with coverage of the current conflict in Gaza. It is not inconceivable that some of those rescued by Winton could be the grandparents of IDF soldiers currently attacking Palestinian families with children in Rafa. Will we never learn? As a film i'll give it 9/10 - well worth seeing.