r/MadeMeSmile • u/RoyalChris • Feb 25 '25

Wholesome Moments Nicholas Winton helped 669 Jewish children escape the Nazis and his efforts went unrecognised for 50 years. Then, in 1988, while sitting as a member of a TV audience, he suddenly found himself surrounded by the kids he had rescued, who were now adults.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '25

A lot of people did things like this and never spoke of it to anyone, my great grandmother was one of them

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u/nun_the_wiser Feb 25 '25

my family too. They lived in an apartment complex and they had a whole system to keep people safe. There was one woman they couldn’t save, and my grandmother testified at the trial of the Nazi who killed her.

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u/fisherthem_ Feb 25 '25

Thats awesome and something to be proud of. I exist because of people like your grandmother.

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u/nun_the_wiser Feb 26 '25

Thank you for sharing that ❤️

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u/negao360 Feb 26 '25

Glad you're here🤗

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u/Leading_Garage_6582 Feb 26 '25

Yeah, I don't think people understand how insane WW2 was. My Grandfather was a gunner on a Jeep in the European front, only thing he's ever said to me and my dad about it is "killing is not good"

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u/PopeInnocentXIV Feb 26 '25

Jeremy Clarkson did a great documentary on the history of the Victoria Cross, and focused on one in particular, Major Robert Cain.

He died of cancer in 1974. Sadly, that means I never met him, which is a shame for two reasons: firstly, because I'm absolutely fascinated with VC winners; and secondly, because I'm married to his daughter. She didn't even know he'd won a Victoria Cross until after he died. He never thought to mention it.

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u/skiesfullofbats Feb 26 '25

That's sounds like my grandpa. He fought in the battle of the bulge and was captured then sent to Stalag IX-B where he was starved, got really sick, and saw many of the other prisoners die. He didn't mention much of what he went through during his time in WWII, it was pretty clear that it was not things he wanted to remember or talk much about. He went to war a Lutheran and came back atheist, said no god could exist and if it did but allowed those horrors to happen, it wasn't a god worth following.

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u/KataqNarayan Feb 26 '25

My grand uncle lost his leg in the amphibious invasion of Italy. He was a tank commander. I just remember as a kid that he was missing a leg and never thought to ask why. He never talked about it. I only found out because my grandfather (shortly before he died) told me. He said “Ah Walter.. he loved his tanks”.

It just seems so common that our grand parents don’t really talk about any of it.

He served in the Met Police after, despite missing a leg. Should probably try emailing them and seeing what he go up to there.

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u/Montantero Feb 26 '25

You most definitely should email them, this sounds like it could lead to such interesting stories!!

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u/CelestialGlowXa Feb 26 '25

not gonna lie, this got me teary-eyed… true kindness never fades

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u/tzippora Feb 26 '25

Wow....you came from good stock.

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u/pleonhart Feb 25 '25

In Judaism there's a saying (accompanied by a cautionary tale) that the greatest tzedakah (an act of good/good will) someone can do is the one no one know about. So even if your great grandmother never told a soul about it, if you believe in some kind of divine providence, she absolutely got something good for it.

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u/TiredEnglishStudent Feb 26 '25

Another saying in Judaism is that when someone saves one life, it's as if he saved an entire world. Imagine people like Nicholas Winton who saved hundreds of worlds. 

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u/Saylor4292 Feb 26 '25

For real and you still see the breadth of that truth here in these comments. Truly remarkable. ✊

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u/SeaWolfSeven Feb 26 '25

That's really beautiful and true.

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u/___horf Feb 26 '25

And even if you don’t believe in divine providence, there’s gotta be some truth to ancient wisdom anyway, right?

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u/DDRaptors Feb 26 '25

Yup. My family housed Jews during the War. The Germans even found out about it, luckily near the end of the war, so the young German soldiers also ignored it and didn’t tell their superiors either. Thanks to them all I’m here today. 

It takes noble people from all walks for this species to survive. 

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u/Nimue_- Feb 26 '25

Damn, all the stories in this thread are so cool. My granddad just stole his neighbours radio back from the nazis lol

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u/TheSciFiGuy80 Feb 26 '25

Every little bit helps

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u/TheStinger87 Feb 26 '25

How were they supposed to get their traffic reports then? The nerve of him.

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u/MediumAwkwardly Feb 26 '25

Still basass! Resist however we can!

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '25

Heh, in my county there was a German base ands they forced the locals to cook for them and feed them. Let's just say there were a lot less stray cats in the area for a while

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u/queefer_sutherland92 Feb 26 '25

My grandfather.

He never mentioned it. He was a small, quiet man who liked to build things and occasionally contribute to history.

Once I found a picture of him in a newspaper from the 50s showing the mayor some major building he was engineering. Never knew about that either.

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u/CrazyFish1911 Feb 26 '25

My wife's great aunt... was always active in veterans causes, and we knew she was a WAC member. She always said she was part of the propaganda dept. But then she got a spot on one of the Honor Flights to go to DC and a reporter saw she was the only woman on the flight and started interviewing her. Turns out she started out in propaganda but got recruited by the secret service (or whatever it was called then) and was sent out to do things like collect evidence on the balloon bombs that hit the west coast from Japan (they sent women in plain clothes because they wanted to keep the balloon bomb thing quiet). She was in a group that was championed by Eleanor Roosevelt and met her numerous times. Also received an award which was presented to her by General MacArthur. She spent the war doing intelligence work. Nobody knew for 40+ plus years because it was classified at the time and her ability to keep her mouth shut about things was one of the reason she was recruited.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '25

Damn, go auntie war hero! Breaking all the gossiping stereotypes

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u/CrazyFish1911 Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25

Lol, she was literally in an elevator with a bunch of the other women from the propaganda group and an army officer got on with them. He was quizzing them all about what they were working on and she stayed quiet. He finally looked at her specifically and said "what about you?" and her response was "They told us not to talk about it." He came back the next day and told her she was being reassigned.

Edit: I should mention that this lady was an absolute gem and a badass. Lived independently and was still competently driving until she died in her mid 90s. She believed in "service every day" and one of things she did that always cracked me up was that even in her 90s she would go down to the care center every week and run bingo "for the old people"... the fact that she was older than most of them never seemed to occur to her lol.

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u/t0adthecat Feb 26 '25

I seen a post in reddit r/conservatives. That said "if the left think it's wrong to deport illegals, why don't you see them talking about hiding them in their homes"

I was banned because I didn't know the rules and said "I think that would defeat the whole purpose right". Lol

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u/ci1979 Feb 26 '25

I would wear than ban like a badge of honor

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u/t0adthecat Feb 26 '25

Absolutely.

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u/NDSU Feb 26 '25

Wouldn't that just be a sanctuary city? I thought they got very angry about those

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u/t0adthecat Feb 26 '25

Dude. They don't make sense in their own circle jerks. I mean, think about that, they asked why people aren't posting they are hiding undocumented immigrants to let others know. Lol. Common sense is not a republican strength. Not really sure what is.

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u/HotPinkHabit Feb 26 '25 edited Feb 26 '25

I’m curious what rule this eminently reasonable response broke?

Eta: i want over there to look around and couldn’t last more than few minutes. Ew

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u/NukinDuke Feb 26 '25

Not being a piece of shit probably

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u/t0adthecat Feb 26 '25

Oh, so you have to have flair, not sure how they determine or give that out. But if you have ANY i mean ANY speaking points against typical conservative convo, that's it. I mean though that's a logical question. If I was sneaking or hiding something, why would I announce it right?

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u/t0adthecat Feb 26 '25

Also, I used my other random account to comment again and reddit figured out it was me. Lolol. I know, I know. I only troll the right because it's honestly not trolling. It's common sense.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '25

Yeah don't go there, it's gross.

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u/TheShipEliza Feb 26 '25

Imo in a crisis like that you cant speak of it. You just have to do good. If you tell ppl you make the ppl you helped targets and point out a weakness in the plan of the oppressor. Just gotta do good and go on about your day. I think about this a lot as an american in 2025.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '25

I mean that they never spoke of it later, when it was safe

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u/NothingAndNow111 Feb 26 '25

My friend's grandparents, as well. They only discovered everything years after the grandfather died and the grandmother had dementia. Both were eventually inducted (? Added?) to the Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations (I went to the ceremony), but they never knew.

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u/Attheveryend Feb 26 '25

just good opsec.

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u/DoobKiller Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 26 '25

how do you know if she never mentioned it to anyone?

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '25

We didn't find out until my mother and her sister were contacted by a jewish organization that does work to find and honor people like that. We were invited to a ceremony where they were given a medal on behalf of their grandmother, and a woman who was just a girl back then told us everything about it. And then about 50 people in the room stood up and they were all decendants from the people who were saved back then. Even my granddad who was a small boy then, never spoke a work about it (he had passed by the time my mom was contacted)

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u/ci1979 Feb 26 '25

Wow, what a beautiful and deeply touching legacy. I'm glad your grandparents passed on their wonderful genes, I hope goodness is somewhat genetic.

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u/ExcitementMost6948 Feb 26 '25

God Bless her!

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u/Rikoschett Feb 27 '25

How do you know if she never spoke of it?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

I have replied to two others who asked the same. There is an organisation that works to recognize people who did these things

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u/ProtonPizza Feb 25 '25

And to think today she'd have a whole career as youtuber profit-helping people.

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u/Morticia_Marie Feb 26 '25

Not necessarily. There are still plenty of people who do good without drawing attention to themselves. You just don't hear about them because they don't have careers as YouTubers profit-helping people.

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u/ForwardRhubarb2048 Feb 26 '25

How do you know about it, if she never spoke of it to anyone?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '25

We didn't find out until my mother and her sister were contacted by a jewish organization that does work to find and honor people like that. We were invited to a ceremony where they were given a medal on behalf of their grandmother, and a woman who was just a girl back then told us everything about it. And then about 50 people in the room stood up and they were all decendants from the people who were saved back then. Even my granddad who was a small boy then, never spoke a work about it (he had passed by the time my mom was contacted)