Nicky`s Family

Nicky’s Family
Conversation Starter by Ittay Flescher
“If something isn’t
blatantly impossible,
there must be a way
of doing it”
– Nicholas Winton
In 1939, Nicholas Winton, a young stockbroker, saved the
lives of 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia by
bringing them across Hitler’s Germany to his native Britain.
Today, there are more than 6,000 descendants of the children
Winton saved—and all of them owe their lives to this gentle,
unassuming hero, now over 100 years old. Twenty-six of the
rescued children from all over the world are featured in the
film, and many of them are taking Winton’s example and
helping others. Nicky’s Family is suitable
for students in Years 7-12
undertaking:
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Humanities
History
Holocaust Studies
English
Jewish Studies
Religion and Society
Nicky’s Family is suitable
for units on the following
subjects:
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War and Peace
Change makers
Memory
Leadership
Justice
Discussion questions for young children
1. What is your idea of a hero?
2. What makes Nicholas Winton a hero?
3. Do you think that anybody can be a hero? Why or Why not?
Discussion questions based on quotes
“Nicholas Winton is so humble about what he did, he
didn’t tell a soul about it for 50 years. This movie shows
humanity’s worst and best. It shatters your soul and fills you
with joy! It makes you feel agony and then gives you hope.
It shows you arrogance and then grace, and above all, that
the power of good cannot be snuffed out by evil and that true
heroes really do exist.” – Dawn Underwood, Film Critic
4. What values can we learn from the film?
“’Nicky’s Family’ is a story of triumph. Triumph over
tyrants. Triumph of freedom which means everything to
many of us. The children saved and their descendants now
number more than 5,700. These people, down to the young
grandchildren, have been contributors to our society and
have done amazing things. Many feel the need to emulate
Sir Nicholas Winton in doing good works wherever they are
needed.”
– Kendra L Shrode, Mackinac Center for Public Policy 5. What do you think is the best way to honour Nicholas
Winton?
“Family can have many meanings.
For most of us it constitutes the
people we live with - our parents,
siblings and children. It can also
have meaning to people that find
they are more at home with their
friends than with their biological
family. But family can also consist
of some very special people people that put their own personal
welfare aside for the greater good.
And such is the case in ‘Nicky’s
Family’.”
– Kay Shackleton, film historian
6. What does your family mean to you?
Our Responsibility to Protect
“There is a difference between passive
goodness and active goodness which is, in my
opinion, the giving of one’s time and energy in
the alleviation of pain and suffering. It entails
going out, finding and helping those in suffering
and danger and not merely leading an
exemplary life, in the purely passive
way of doing no wrong.”
– Nicholas Winton,
from a letter written in 1939
Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the international
community’s failure to intervene, former UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan asked the question: When does the
international community intervene for the sake of protecting
populations?
This led to a 2005 UN initiative called the responsibility to
protect (R2P). It consists of a set of principles, based on the
idea that sovereignty is not a right, but a responsibility. R2P
focuses on preventing and halting four crimes: genocide, war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, which
it places under the generic umbrella term of, Mass Atrocity
Crimes. The Responsibility to Protect has three “pillars”.
1. A state has a responsibility to protect its population from
mass atrocities;
2. The international community has a responsibility to assist
the state to fulfil its primary responsibility;
3. If the state fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities
and peaceful measures have failed, the international
community has the responsibility to intervene through
coercive measures such as economic sanctions. Military
intervention is considered the last resort.
As you are reading this page, it is quite likely that a mass
atrocity is happening somewhere in the world. Some
will be in the news, some will not. The Global Centre
for the Responsibility to Protect applies an R2P lens to
situations where populations are experiencing, or are at
risk of, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or
ethnic cleansing. For each population at risk they provide
a background on the situation, an analysis of the factors
putting populations at risk of mass atrocities, a timeline of
the international response and a set of suggested necessary
actions to protect populations and prevent further crimes.
See: http://www.globalr2p.org/regions/
After you have read this website, ask yourself:
1. Was I aware of these mass atrocities happening in my
world at the moment? Why/Why not?
2. Who are the victims and perpetrators in these mass
atrocities?
3. How can I learn more and raise awareness about these
mass atrocities?
Ittay Flescher is a Jewish Educator in Melbourne and a fellow of
Hebrew University’s Senior Educators Program.
‘Thou shalt
not be a
victim, thou
shalt not be a
perpetrator,
but, above all,
thou shalt not
be a bystander.’
Professor
Yehuda Bauer