Reunion of former classmates of the Czechoslovak state school in front of its building in Wales

Reunion of former classmates of the Czechoslovak state school in front of its building in Wales

This is a photograph of us, Winton's children, in front of our school in Wales. The photo was taken during our reunion in 2005. I'm the second from the left, third from the left is my friend Vera Gissing and the man beside her is Joe Schlesinger.

We made lifelong friendships at that school. My best friend, Vera Gissing, back then Diamantova, returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, but then re-emigrated to England. We have a friendship that you won't find just like that. I know that if I rang at her door at two, at three in the morning, she'd do anything for me. And I'd to the same for her. And not only she, and not only for her, there are exceptionally strong bonds amongst all of us, because our fates were so closely wedded during such a critical time of our youth.

The narrator of the film "The Power of Good" is Joe Schlesinger, today a world-famous journalist. He's retired now, but is still active, and lives in Canada now. I was in the United States two and a half years ago, near New York, and he redid his whole program because of me, he had to cancel a TV crew, an interview with who knows how many ambassadors, and came to see me. That's not something someone would do just like that, is it? It again testifies to the bonds that exist among us.

Some of my classmates remained abroad after the war, some of us that had returned emigrated once again. And now we're scattered around the whole world. Literally. In Tasmania, in Israel, in the United States, in England of course... what's interesting is that none of Winton's children are in France. One of our classmates is there, but he wasn't among those whose life Winton saved. So, a person can travel all over the world, as long as he's got money, and everywhere he's got the feeling that he's welcome, that he's not imposing, that people are glad to see him.

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