Holocaust service will honor ‘A Good, Ordinary Man’
April 26
Holocaust Observance
South Hills Interfaith Ministries will host its 36th annual Holocaust Observance 7:30 p.m. April 26 at St. Bernard Church, Mt. Lebanon. The annual event, which is free and open to the public, and one of the oldest in the region, commemorates the lives lost under the Nazi regime.
This year’s remembrance service – A Good, Ordinary Man: Sir Nicholas Winton and the Kindertransports – honors Sir Nicholas Winton, a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669, mostly Jewish, children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. During the operation, later known as the Czech Kindertransport, Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain.
Winton, who will celebrate his 106 birthday in mid-May, kept quiet about his humanitarian exploits for many years, until his wife found a detailed scrapbook in their attic in 1988. The scrapbook contained lists of the children, including their parents’ names, and the names and addresses of the families that took them in.
The evening’s program includes excerpts and stories about some of the children he saved, commentaries from some of the family members who housed them and narrative about Winton’s own feelings, experience and his desire to do what he could to alleviate pain and suffering.
For more information, call 412-854-9120.