RSS
The real story behind ‘One Life,’ the movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton, who rescued Jewish children from the Nazis
(JTA) — In a 1988 episode of the British television show “That’s Life,” British stockbroker Nicholas Winton was invited to sit in the audience as host Esther Rantzen dramatically revealed to him that the entire crowd was composed of the Jewish children — now adults — he had saved during the Holocaust.
That tear-jerking clip periodically goes viral on social media, but now, Winton’s story is coming to bigger screens — in a dramatic film, “One Life,” where he is portrayed by two-time Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins.
Hopkins was the casting choice of Winton’s daughter, who died as it was being filmed, seven years after her father. Already, the movie has ignited criticism — and swift revision — over promotional materials that did not include language about the children’s Jewish identities. The full story about the film’s subject is even more complex, with connections to Ghislaine Maxwell, a gold ring, the Talmud and of course the tragic saga of European Jewry.
Winton’s role in that saga was hardly assured. Born to German-Jewish parents in London in 1909, Winton (originally “Wertheim”) was baptized into the Anglican Church, and as an adult, never subscribed to any religion.
Sir Nicholas Winton stands in front of the Tornado steam train that brought evacuees in 1939 to Liverpool Street railway station on September 4, 2009 in London, England. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
At 29, he was a stockbroker planning to ski in Switzerland with friends when his travel partner, schoolteacher Martin Blake called and said the trip was off — he was heading to Prague instead.
“I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help,” Winton recalled Blake saying. “Come as soon as you can. And don’t bother bringing your skis.”
Blake was working with the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, an organization established to save Jews and other minority groups targeted by the Nazis in the recently-annexed Sudetenland.
But it was the appeal of a Czech Jewish social worker and activist, Marie Schmolka, that ultimately brought Winton into the Czech Kindertransport-inspired project organized by British university lecturer Doreen Warriner. Schmolka, who is not often mentioned in accounts of Winton’s efforts and is not portrayed in the movie, had visited the areas where refugees were concentrated and collected evidence to garner public support, pleading to foreign ambassadors based in Prague and to Jewish agencies abroad, hoping someone would take them in. But Britain would only take unaccompanied children.
For the first three weeks of Jan. 1939, Winton mostly worked out of a hotel in Prague, coordinating and collecting applications from parents seeking homes for their children outside of Czechoslovakia. He also took photographs of the children, which he later said was more persuasive for prospective families than a mere list of names.
Back in Britain, still working his job at the stock exchange, Winton and his assistants and his mother fundraised, collected or forged the children’s travel documents, and also placed advertisements in newspapers to find them foster homes.
On March 14, 1939, the day before Nazi Germany invaded the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia, the first of eight trains containing 699 children, mostly Jewish, headed to Britain. A ninth train was scheduled to depart on Sept. 3, but was halted — Germany had invaded Poland two days earlier, officially starting the war, and the borders were closed. None of the approximately 250 children on that train are known to have survived.
Early in the war, he worked for the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in France and in England during the London Blitz, later joining the Royal Air Force training pilots and documenting the destruction he saw with his photography. In the years after the war, he joined the International Refugee Organization, working on the repatriation of Nazi-looted goods.
His work with the children went unnoticed for decades. Then, in the late 1980s, Winton’s wife Grete Gjelstrup discovered a scrapbook in the attic with the children’s names and photos, as well as letters written by their parents.
“I suppose there are quite a number of things that husbands don’t tell their wives,” Winton told Matej Minac, who directed several films about his story.
Gjelstrup brought the book to Holocaust historian Elizabeth Maxwell, the wife of media magnate Robert Maxwell (also the parents of Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced to prison over her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex abuse ring) who brought Winton’s story of saving the hundreds of children to the press, and eventually, to “That’s Life!” where he met some of the children he saved.
Nicholas Winton, then 105, receives the Order of White Lion, the highest order of the Czech Republic, from Czech President Milos Zeman during the Independence Day at Prague Castle, Oct. 28, 2014. (Matej Divizna/Getty Images)
Winton was nicknamed “the British Schindler” after German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved some 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. More than 6,000 children and grandchildren of the Czech Kindertransport owe their lives to Nicholas Winton, according to “One Life,” the 2014 book written by his daughter and biographer, Barbara Winton, which inspired the film. (The book was originally called “If It’s Not Impossible.”) Some of their descendants appear as extras in the “That’s Life!” scene.
Upon giving permission for a film adaptation of her book, Barbara Winton made one request of the project: cast Hopkins as her father.
Barbara Winton gave the filmmakers access to her father’s letters and other archival materials.
She died in September 2022, while “One Life” was still filming.
“One Life” is a reference to a paraphrased quote from the Mishnah: “Save one life, save the world,” which was inscribed in a gold ring presented to Winton in 1988 at a Holocaust conference organized by Elizabeth Maxwell at Oxford by some of the children he saved. Winton wore the ring for the rest of his life.
The gold ring presented to Nicholas Winton, inscribed with the phrase, “Save one life, save the world.” (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI)
The quote is also referenced in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” in a scene where, at the end of the war, the Jews Schindler saved give him a gold ring made from their dental fillings inscribed with a nearly identical quote as a parting gift. The real ring, according to Jozef Gross, the jeweler who created it, did not have an inscription.
Controversy arose in early January when the film’s promotional materials in the United Kingdom failed to mention that the majority of the children in danger were Jewish. Instead, some marketing materials referred to the children as “Central European.”
After social media backlash, IMDb, the Warner Bros. U.K. website, and British theater chain Vue have all changed their summary of the film to read “predominantly Jewish.”
The National Portrait Gallery in London, which was running a series of portraits of children saved by Winton as an accompaniment to the film, also changed the text in its description.
“Our Gallery’s curatorial team made this update to the website copy to better reflect the identity of the individuals who traveled on the Kindertransport,” a representative from the National Portrait Gallery wrote in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The original copy assumed that this was implicit, given the nature of the digital exhibition, however, following feedback, we felt it was important to clarify this.”
Helena Bonham Carter attends a photo call for “One Life,” out in January 2024, at The Rosewood Hotel on Nov. 30, 2023 in London. (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Warner Bros)
The film has another Jewish angle to it as well — actress Helena Bonham Carter, who is of Jewish descent, plays Winton’s mother, Babette Wertheim.
“It was in my DNA to play this role because I come from Austrian Jewish heritage,” Bonham Carter told the Jewish News of London. “And on top of that, on both sides, both my grandparents helped a lot of Jewish people with visas to get out of Nazi Europe.”
Bonham Carter called Winton a hero, and said the most important part of the film was to make sense of him, “what made this man, this exceptional man, so modest, do the most extraordinary things,” she said.
Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at the age of 106.
Despite going decades without recognition for his heroism during the war, the later years of his life were filled with honors and awards. Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his efforts during the war, and he received the Order of the White Lion, the highest order from the Czech Republic in 2014. He even had a minor planet named after him.
Still, he insisted for years that his work was not heroic.
“I was never in any danger,” Winton told a British newspaper in 2011. “I took on a big task, but did it from the safety of my home in Hampstead.”
—
The post The real story behind ‘One Life,’ the movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Nicholas Winton, who rescued Jewish children from the Nazis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
The post White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
The post Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.