Esther Rantzen was the only reason I got to thank Sir Nicholas Winton for saving my life, Holocaust survivor reveals

Esther Rantzen was the only reason a Holocaust survivor ever got to meet her saviour Sir Nicholas Winton and thank him for saving her life.The broadcaster, who died this week at the age of 86 after battling stage four lung cancer, created some of the most moving scenes in TV history when she reunited one of the Second World War's most unsung heroes with dozens of the children he saved.Sir Nicholas, an unassuming stockbroker from Hampstead, had been harbouring a secret for almost 50 years when his wife Grete found a scrapbook in their attic at home in Maidenhead in 1987.Inside the scrapbook were the names and photographs of hundreds of children that, it would transpire, the then-29-year-old had helped to rescue from Nazi-occupied Prague before the war broke out.In all, Sir Nicholas had helped 669 children, who were mostly Jewish, to escape Czechoslovakia for Britain by train – where he helped to secure sponsorship and homes for them thanks to a law enacted in the wake of Kristallnacht.One of the first to be tracked down by the BBC for Rantzen's That's Life!, Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, was rescued as nine-year-old Milena Fleischmann, along with her three-year-old sister.Lady Milena, now 96, was one of the few children saved by Sir Nicholas who wasn't Jewish – her father had made it onto the Nazis' wanted list after he helped author Thomas Mann escape from the regime.She knew little of how she had escaped to Britain, and was fortunate enough that both her parents somehow got out of Czechoslovakia in time too. Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, 96, is one of 669 children saved from the Nazis by Sir Nicholas Winton's Kindertransports She met Sir Nicholas for the first time (pictured) after the intervention of Dame Esther on an episode of That's Life! Dame Esther Rantzen and Sir Nicholas, whom she introduced to the world as the saviour of children from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939It wasn't until a phone call in 1988 that the pieces started to come together, and it was all thanks to Childline founder Dame Esther.Lady Milena told how she received a call out of the blue from the broadcaster and initially didn't even believe it was real.'And I'm the Queen of England,' she said she responded into the handset when Dame Esther introduced herself.But the presenter convinced her of her identity, began explaining how Lady Milena's records had been discovered in Sir Nicholas's scrapbook, and invited her to attend a recording of the show to meet him. Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: 'When I arrived at the studio, all Esther told us was that we were going to be meeting the man who had organised the Kindertransport. 'She also said: 'Now, you're not to tell him who you are.' She sat me down in the front row on his right-hand side. On his other side was Vera Gissing, who he also rescued, and who I went to school with in Wales during the war.'During the show, Dame Esther's co-presenter read out what she had told the production team: 'If it was Nicholas Winton who helped me to escape, my sister and my cousin with me, then I would be honoured to meet him – to thank him. 'If it were not for him, I would have gone the same way as my [other] cousins, who both ended up in concentration camps.' Lady Milena (centre) with her younger sister Eva, her adoptive parents Roland Ratcliffe his wife Florie and daughter Mary after arriving in England Sir Nicholas is seen surrounded by dozens of the children he saved in a special episode of That's Life! presented by Dame Esther A visibly moved Sir Nicholas could be seen wiping away tears after being reunited with his 'children'Lady Milena was able to meet with her saviour after the show, although he is said to have left quickly: 'He was a gentle man who never looked for thanks. He was quite cross with Esther for springing it all on him.'But he returned for a second show on July 3 1988, in which dozens of the children he had saved – but not Lady Milena herself on that occasion – were all seated around him. Asking the audience if any of them 'owes their life to Nicholas Winton', around two dozen people sat immediately around him in the studio stood up – all children evacuated from Prague thanks to his efforts.Sir Nicholas flashed a brief grin – then, as he sat down, wiped tears from both eyes.That it took decades for his understated heroism to come to light is no surprise: not even his wife Grete knew he had travelled to Prague in 1938 at the behest of his friend, Martin Blake, who was working with Czech refugee groups.Sir Nicholas – known as 'Nicky' among his family – spent just three weeks in the city but set in motion part of what became known as the Kindertransport operation that would ultimately rescue 10,000 children from across Nazi-occupied Europe.He chipped in to cover costs, dealt with the heavy bureaucracy and organisation and, reportedly, forged travel documents and bribed officials when frustrated by delays.With assurances given that each child would come with a £50 guarantee (£2,900 now) to cover the costs of repatriation post-conflict, the first train left on March 14 1939, a day before the Nazis fully occupied the country. Dame Esther kept in touch with Lady Milena throughout her life and wrote a new forward about Sir Nicholas just months before her death this weekEight would leave in all, with collaborators in Prague including Trevor Chadwick seeing them off before being met by Sir Nicholas and others in London. The children were then settled with willing British families, most never to see their own parents again.What was to be the last train was cancelled by the Nazis on September 1 – the day they invaded Poland and closed all borders.Of the 250 children on board, just two are thought to have survived the war, according to an interview Vera Gissing gave in 2006. The failure to get the final train through haunted Sir Nicholas for the rest of his life.In the years following the recording, Lady Milena started getting to know Sir Nicholas, and the pair eventually wound up seeing each other regularly.She would visit him at his home in Maidenhead, often picking up his favourite lunch on the way – a typically understated cauliflower cheese and rice pudding.But it wasn't the only friendship forged from the experience: Lady Milena kept in touch with Dame Esther too, right up until the end of her life.Years later she is said to have told Lady Milena that the second episode featuring Sir Nicholas was the most important evening of her entire life.'She was very much the way you saw her on the screen – friendly, easy and warm,' she said.'Even right to the last few months of her life, when I wrote to her, she immediately wrote back, or I got a message back from her daughter. She was glad to know what we were all doing.'Given all of Dame Esther's charitable works, it is perhaps fitting that one of her last major contributions before her death was to write about Sir Nicholas for a new book about the Kindertransport.In telling his story to the nation, she created a new national hero – and ensured her own legacy will live on too.