Given the anti Semitic pro Palestinian mentality among the left I doubt he stands a chance

Worthy of the prize

Sir Nicholas Winton deserves to be called a hero - and would be a worthy recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize

Jewish refugees arriving in Britain, 1939. Sir Nicholas Winton, known as the British Oskar Schindler, played a pivotal part in their rescue Photo: GETTY

By Telegraph View

8:19PM BST 17 May 2013

16 Comments

People are often called heroes these days without deserving the description. But one who does is Sir Nicholas Winton, who tomorrow celebrates his 104th birthday. As Neil Tweedie reports, this unassuming man characteristically does not want a fuss made either of his great age or of his illustrious past. He is uncomfortable being referred to as the British Oskar Schindler. Yet his achievements warrant the plaudits.

In 1939, it was through his efforts that hundreds of predominantly Jewish children living in Czechoslovakia were evacuated to Britain, thereby escaping the Holocaust. Sir Nicholas’s pivotal role in what became known as the Kindertransport was not fully recognised in his homeland until he was knighted in 2002, aged 93. Now, in the extended twilight of his life, there are moves afoot in the Czech Republic to secure the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Pupils at the Open Gate School in Prague have started an online petition that has so far attracted 195,000 signatures.

Sir Nicholas would be the last person to seek such recognition, and it may be somewhat overdue. But this prize in recent years has been awarded both to Barack Obama and the European Union, for reasons that have been hard to fathom. The Nobel Prize committee would go some way to recovering its reputation were it to select Sir Nicholas as a worthy recipient.