A statue commemorating a forgotten Holocaust hero from Britain has finally been unveiled in his hometown.
Trevor Chadwick worked with Sir Nicholas Winton to smuggle 669 Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia before the start of World War Two.
At great personal risk, the Latin private schoolteacher helped forged exit passes to fool the Nazis and help get youngsters to Britain.
But his war efforts were little known of until recently and his own son did not even know about the rescue mission for many years.
The Trevor Chadwick Memorial Trust, created almost three years ago, launched an £80,000 fundraising campaign for his memorial back in March.
The 800lbs bronze statue has been erected in Swanage. An unveiling ceremony was today attended by Trevor’s grandchildren as well as Nick Winton, the son of the late Sir Nicholas Winton.
Trevor’s son, Charles Chadwick, 90, said: ‘I am delighted that he has been publicly recognised after so long.
‘This recognition is a matter of some pride for our family. For many years I didn’t know what my father did.
‘He never spoke about it. I think that after the war there was a reluctance to be reminded of what happened.’
Trevor first got involved in the kindertransport in 1938 when he went to Prague to save two Jewish refugees so they could be educated in Swanage.
But he was so moved by what he witnessed to that he returned to save others.
Together with six others, Trevor organised a total of eight trains from the capital.
Their hard work has been likened to that of Oskar Schindler, whose story was told in the 1993 film Schindler’s List.
Nick Winton said about the operation: ‘My dad became the symbol of Britain’s kindertransport programme.
‘But his view was that he didn’t do anything heroic and that there was a team of people like Trevor Chadwick who put themselves at far greater risk by staying in Czechoslovakia to deal with the Gestapo.
‘At the time my father had returned to London to organise fundraising and logistics.
‘He would have been delighted to know that at long last there was something to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of Trevor Chadwick.
‘It is a fitting tribute and I think it is essential that people have a record of the extraordinary contribution made by ordinary people like Trevor Chadwick to help others in need.’
Trevor spent most of his later life living in Oslo, Norway, with his German wife Sigrid and died in 1979, aged 72.
The statue features a child sleeping on him as a reminder of when he calmed down a one-year-old baby on a plane.
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