Heartwarming moment man realised he was surrounded by children he helped escape the Holocaust

A viral video of a man who realised he was in a room surrounded by children he helped escape the Holocaust spawned an underrated drama starring Anthony Hopkins.

The film, called One Life, tells the story of a British man who was able to save 669 children from the Holocaust.

Nicholas Winton decided to leave behind his job as a stockbroker in London in 1938 and head to Prague to help hundreds of mostly Jewish children escape before World War Two broke out. As all signs were pointing towards the worsening conditions for Jewish people under Hitler’s rule, many countries refused to take large numbers of Jewish immigrants.

Winton was an internationalist and a socialist who kept keenly aware of the events taking place in Europe, especially as he himself was of Jewish descent.

In December 1938, one month after the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, he received a letter from his friend Martin Blake.

Winton helped save 100s of people from the Holocaust (BBC)

Blake was already in Prague and sent Winton an invitation saying: “I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help. Don't bother bringing your skis.”

Blake, Winton, and Doreen Warriner set up a headquarters in Prague to smuggle children through the Netherlands and across to London, where they had to set up a foster family to take in every child. Winton was later referred to as the ‘British Schindler’, but insists he wasn’t heroic.

In an interview with The Guardian he said: “I wasn’t heroic because I was never in danger.

“It turned out to be remarkable… but it didn’t seem remarkable when I did it. Some people are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

“It’s only because I’ve lived so long that this has happened.”

He appeared on the BBC show That’s Life, where the show joined The Sunday Mirror in a call to find the 600+ ‘lost children’ he helped to relocate.

In a heartwarming moment, the man was informed that Vera Diamant, one of the children on the list of those he helped, was actually the woman sat directly to the left of him.

Winton was immediately emotional as the pair hugged, but things only got more extraordinary when it was revealed that another child he helped, Hans Schnabl, was sat to the other side of Vera.

Then, a woman named Milena, sitting on his right-hand side, told him: “I was one of the young children you saved.”

The hero was later invited back onto the show, only to be told that every single member of the audience was someone he saved from the Holocaust.

A clip of this on YouTube received a whopping 43,000,000 views, leading to the creation of the film about his life. One Life stars Anthony Hopkins and received a score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.5 on IMDb.

Nicholas Winton was played by Sir Anthony Hopkins (FilmNation Entertainment)

Rex Reed of the Observer gave the film 3.4/4 stars, saying: “As we continue to grapple with today’s issues of war, refugee crisis and growing anti semitism, the film’s relevance is so troubling that you cannot fail to be moved by it.”

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it a four star review, saying: “The film does justice to this overwhelmingly moving event in British public life in a quietly affecting drama.”

One Life airs tonight on BBC Two at 9pm.