Vera Gissing (1928–2022)

Vera Gissing was born Věra Diamantová to a Jewish family in Prague, and grew up in nearby Čelákovice, Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic). Her parents were wine merchants. In 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded her country at the start of World War II, she was 11 years old and had had an idyllic childhood until then. She and her older sister Eva were among the Czech Jewish children rescued by British stockbroker and humanitarian Nicholas Winton by being sent on a Kindertransport train to the UK. The rest of her family died in the Holocaust. At the end of the war, she returned to Czechoslovakia, where she studied English at university and worked for the Defense Ministry. In 1948, she emigrated again to the UK. There she became a literary translator, married Michael Gissing, and raised two daughters. She would often speak about about the moral courage of her parents, the Rainford family in Liverpool who offered her sanctuary, and Nicholas Winton. Her story was depicted in the 2021 book by Czech-born writer Peter Sís called Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued. Vera wrote an autobiography, Perličky dětství (Pearls of Childhood, 1990), composed of personal memories of the pre-war and war years, as well as diary entries and letters. In 2001, she published with Muriel Emanuel the book Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good (aka Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Generation).