Anthony Hopkins to star in film on ‘British Schindler’ Sir Nicholas Winton

Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins will portray Sir Nicholas Winton, known as the “British Schindler” in a film about his efforts that saved 669 Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II, the BBC reports.

Hopkins will star in “One Life” which tells the story of Winston and the children from Prague who were among some 10,000 mostly Jewish children who made it to Britain on what were known as the Kindertransports (children’s transports). Few of them would see their parents again.

The baptized son of Jewish parents, Winton was a 29-year-old stockbroker when he arrived in Prague in December 1938. He was planning to go on a skiing holiday in Switzerland, but changed his plans when he heard about the refugee crisis in Czechoslovakia, which had just been occupied by the Nazis. In the following nine months, he organized eight trains that carried hundreds of children, the vast majority of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia to safety in Britain.

Winton’s heroism was unremarked until the 1980s, when his wife found evidence of the rescues. The discovery led to a reunion with some of the children and a documentary. Winton received many honors in his later years, including the knighthood.

Winton died in 2015 at the age of 106.