‘The Power of One’ was the title of Bryce Courtney’s hugely successful novel, set in south Africa in the 1930s and 1940s. And charts the journey of a fictional character, an English boy Peekay, who grows up to achieve remarkable things and impact many people’s lives. ‘The Power Of One’ was later made in to a major motion picture.

The new movie ONE LIFE is also about a man who does remarkable things. The telling difference is that the main character hasn’t been penned by a novelist but was a real person who achieved remarkable things and later in life received the recognition that he so richly deserved.

In ONE LIFE Nicholas Winton was a well to do English stockbroker who heard about the disaster that was happening in Europe, in particular what was taking place in Prague where refugees, fleeing the Nazis, were congregating.

In December 1938  Martin Blake, a friend and an instruction master at the Westminster School in London, asked him to forego his planned ski vacation and visit him in Czechoslovakia, where he had traveled in his capacity as an associate of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia.

Winton agreed to go. Blake introduced him to his colleague, Doreen Warriner, and arranged for him to visit refugee camps filled to capacity with Jews and political opponents from the Sudetenland (the northern province of Czechoslovakia). He witnessed, first hand, how dire the situation had berome.

After Munich, Winton had been certain that the Germans would occupy the rest of Bohemia and Moravia before long. He had been alarmed further by the violence against the Jewish community in Germany and Austria during the Kristallnacht riots in November 1938. Winton had  heard of the  efforts of Jewish agencies in Britain to rescue German and Austrian Jewish children on the so-called Kindertransport, an effort that eventually brought about 10,000 unaccompanied children to safety in Great Britain.

Winton summoned a small group of people to organise his own form of Kindertransport for children imperilled by the impending Nazi invasion.

Winton returned to London to organize the rescue operation on that end. He raised money to fund the transports of the children and the 50 pound per child guarantee demanded by the British government to fund the children’s eventual departure from Britain. Winton also had to find and organise British families who were willing to foster these children.

By day, Winton worked at his regular job on the Stock Exchange, and then devoted late afternoons and evenings to his rescue efforts. His efforts were focused on getting as many children as possible out of Prague before war broke out.

The first transport of children organised by Winton left Prague on March 14, 1939, the day before the Germans occupied the Czech lands. These children became known as Nicky’s children.

After the Germans established a Protectorate in the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, Winton organised seven further transports that departed by rail out of Prague with the destination London’s main railway station.

At the train station in London, British foster parents gathered to collect the children. The last trainload of children left Prague on August 2, 1939. Rescue activities ceased when Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war against Germany in early September 1939. Between March and August 1939 Winton and his colleagues saved some 669 children from the Nazi death camps.

His is a remarkable story, and James Hawes’ film tells it masterfully. He directs from a screenplay byLucinda Coxon and Nick Drake which itself was adapted from Barbara Winton’s (Nicholas Winton’s daughter) book ‘One Life : The True Story of Sir Nicholas Winton’

The film shifts between the present with Winton an  elderly man, at home in London with his wife and his memories, and the past, back in 1939, in Prague and London, when his remarkable work rescued so many children.

The performances are wonderful. Anthony Hopkins is magnificent as the older Winton as is Johnny Flynn as his younger self. Helena  Bonham Carter gives another fine performance as his iron willed mother Babette who made a huge contribution to the war effort. As Winton’s main colleagues, Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner, the wonderful Jonathon Pryce as Martin Blake and Alex Sharp as Trevor give compelling performances.

Samantha Spiro is excellent as ‘That’s Life’ compere, Esther Rantzen. Whilst Lena Olin gave a good performance as his wife Greta, I was put off by Olin looking much younger than Hopkins which left the audience with a bit of a credibility gap. In real life Greta was only ten years younger than Nicholas.

Zac Nicholson’s cinematography, Volker Bergemann’s score and Luis Zuccheti’s editing are all of a high standard.

One’s response to new movies, can be nebulous.  There was nothing nefarious about my response to ONE LIFE.  There was no keeping the film at arm’s length. One  engaged with it right from the start. As tough as the film got, it was impossible to shrug off.

My review does have a personal aspect to it which undeniably colours my response.

My late mother was one of the Kindertransport children. No, she wasn’t one of Nicky’s children, however she was a Kindertransport survivor.

She spoke of the terrifying events of Kristallnacht, translated as ‘The Night of the Broken Glass’, on the 9th and 10th November 1938, shattering their lives. She remembered going to  school in the morning and seeing  her school, the Jawne Jewish High School, going up in flames. She had no choice but to head back home, walking past apocalyptic  scenes of synagogues burning, shop windows  being smashed and businesses destroyed. Her best friend Erica remembers the crystal chandeliers in her home being smashed.

My mum’s  school headmaster managed to get 100 pupils and 11 teachers out of Germany. Her train left Germany on the 20th July 1939. She was accompanied by 15 other girls. She recalled the Headmaster urging the parents not to come to the station  but her parents and her brother ignored his request.

She never saw her parents again. Her mother died in a concentration camp in 1942. Her died on 8th May, 1945, one day after the end of  the war.

For the rest of my mother’s life, she kept the framed photo that you see by her bedside table. In a way she had never left her parents side.

These are my two main takeaways.

There was the awe inspiring work of Nicholas Winton and his team. Just remarkable.

And then there was the way that the film evocatively encapsulates the Kindertransport experience, what these parents and their children went through. It was as if we were there. On a personal level, before I had my mother’s words to me, now, with James Hawes film, I now felt, every one of them.

Here were parents who loved their children more than anything in the world, yet they had to let them go,  to see them off on to journey to an unfamiliar world where they had to join a new family, become proficient in a second language and learn to live in a different country.

And the children, waving goodbye to their parents,  in a sense waving goodbye to their childhood,

The miracle of Kindertransport is that many of the Kindertransport children, as damaged as they were, went on to lead fulfilling lives, had families of their  own, with some amongst them going on to make important contributions to society.

ONE LIFE, a See-Saw film, MBK Productions and BBC Film co-production, opens nationally in cinemas on Boxing Day.

Compelling and visceral, ONE LIFE opened nationally on Boxing Day.

Start 2024 by seeing this important, excellent film.

Featured image : A pic of Nicholas Winton with one of the hundreds of Jewish children he saved before the outbreak of World War Two. Pic Associated Press