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Greetings and Welcome to The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg
New episodes tend to air over the local KMMR radio station @ 5 minutes past 4PM each M-F. And have been doing so, nearly every week since Sept 2018.
New episodes appear here usually within a few hours after that KMMR air time and been striving to post new releases here by 4:30PM.
I want to again welcome you to The 405 Coffee Break. Guys, warming up a little bit. Get your cup of coffee, glass iced tea, bottle of water. Let's see what's happening.
OK Solberg:No spring wheat price to report. You gotta check it out yourself. 550lb steer calf though, $4.15 up to $4.45 a pound. And a 100lb fat lamb in Billings like I told you yesterday, they're dropping off. $2.70 a pound to $2.85 a pound on the top end. But guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:Okay. Okay. Today, let's look at the man who never forgot the children. What about that? In 1938, that's when my dad was 8 years old, a young British stockbroker named Nicholas Winton had a vacation planned, and he was thinking about skiing.
OK Solberg:But instead, he started saving lives. See, a friend persuaded him to visit Prague, Czechoslovakia. There, Winton saw something he could not ignore. Refugee camps were crowded with families fleeing the Nazis.
OK Solberg:Jewish parents were frightened, and they had every reason to be. They could see the danger coming, but they had nowhere safe to send their children. Winton was 29 years old.
OK Solberg:He wasn't a government official. He wasn't a wealthy philanthropist or a man with any special authority. He was simply a man who decided that somebody ought to do something.
OK Solberg:And then he decided that somebody would be him. He returned to England and began to race against time. He found British families willing to take in refugee children.
OK Solberg:He raised money, arranged transportation, and wrestled with the government paperwork. By day, he worked at the stock exchange. In his spare time, he worked to get the children out of danger.
OK Solberg:Between March and August of 1939, 8 transports carried hundreds of children from Prague to safety in Britain. In all, Winton's efforts helped rescue 669 children, most of them Jewish.
OK Solberg:Then came 09/01/1939, Germany invaded Poland and the 2nd World War began, a final transport of approximately 250 children, which Winton had worked to organize, never left Prague.
OK Solberg:The war would take the lives of millions, including many of the parents who had entrusted their children to strangers in the hope of saving them. And Nicholas Winton, he went on with his life.
OK Solberg:He served during the war, returned to ordinary work, raised a family, and rarely spoke about what he had done. For nearly 50 years, the story remained largely unknown.
OK Solberg:Then in 1988, his wife discovered a scrapbook containing photographs, names, and records of the children he had helped rescue. The discovery eventually brought his story to television.
OK Solberg:When interviewed by some of the television reporters, they asked, Why had you kept it a secret? Nicholas looked perplexed and he said, I didn't keep it a secret.
OK Solberg:I just didn't tell anyone. On the BBC program, That's Life, Winton sat in an audience unaware of what was about to happen. The host revealed his remarkable work. Then she asked whether anyone present had been among the children he had saved.
OK Solberg:One person stood, then another. One by one, the children he had helped, now grown men and women with lives and families of their own, were revealed to be sitting right beside and around him.
OK Solberg:Imagine that moment. There sat a quiet elderly man surrounded by people who might have never been born had he not acted when he was young. Their children and grandchildren owed their existence in part to decisions he had made 50 years earlier.
OK Solberg:He hadn't merely saved children. He had helped preserve generations. Nicholas Winton later received honors including knighthood, but he never seemed to think of himself as a hero.
OK Solberg:He was inclined to say that he had simply done what needed to be done. Perhaps that's one of the best remarkable things about him. He didn't wait to become a great man before doing something great.
OK Solberg:He saw human beings in danger, recognized that he could help, and he went to work. Sometimes history remembers a man because he commanded an army, occupied a throne, or changed the course of the nation.
OK Solberg:And sometimes history remembers a man because he looked at a frightened child and decided that child's life matters. Sir Nicholas Winton died in 2015 at the age of 106.
OK Solberg:In Proverbs 24:11 it says, rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
OK Solberg:Again, Proverbs 24:11 that is exactly what Nicholas did. It's a great story. I love it. I wanna hear more.
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.