In the film One Life, released on 1^st January 2024, Anthony Hopkins plays British stockbroker Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Prague by sending them on what became known as the Kindertransport, a train journey to a safe haven in Britain. 

For decades after the end of World War II, Winton kept what he had done completely quiet – until in 1988, a TV programme, That’s Life, reunited him with dozens of those children, all by then middle-aged.

For this Things Unseen podcast, Rosie Dawson welcomes two people who knew Nicholas Winton personally: Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain from Maidenhead synagogue in Berkshire, where Nicholas Winton lived; and Lord Alf Dubs, a Labour peer who was himself a Kindertransport child and campaigns for the rights of unaccompanied child refugees. They are joined by Sue Butler, joint CEO of Welcome Churches, a network committed to welcoming refugees and asylum seekers.

Together, they discuss some of the questions thrown up by the film: what motivates people like Nicholas Winton to acts of courage while others remain as bystanders? Does religion play any kind of role when it comes to doing good? And what lessons does the story hold for us today?