and for this edition of the arts interviews, i interrupted sir anthony's busy filming schedule to talk to him about his role in one life. is everybody happy? are you happy, sir anthony? yes. tony. i think this whole story has affected me and has actually stayed with me throughout the whole of my life, really. i also speak to the younger nicky winton actor, johnny flynn... the experience of making it will never leave me. ..and 90—year—old renate collins, whose life was saved by nicholas winton. i'm assuming that's you. that's me. if it's not faith that drives you, what is it? ethics. this is sir nicholas winton being interviewed

on the bbc�*s hardtalk program in 2014 when he was 105. love, honesty, decency... ..ethics. that standard of life. i believe in ethics. and if everybody believes in ethics, we'd have no problems at all. 26 years earlier, another bbc programme, that's life, thrust him into the spotlight after it was handed a wartime scrapbook. that tv show told the true story of how nicholas winton had saved the lives of 669 mainlyjewish children. so we told her about him. she said... "i tried very hard to find out who had rescued us. "i even tried the archbishop of canterbury "to see if he knew. "but i drew a blank. "i would very much like to meet nicholas winton to thank him "for saving my life. "if it hadn't been for this

man, i wouldn't be here "to tell the tale." vera gissing is with us here tonight. hello, vera. and i should tell you that you are actually sitting next to nicholas winton. hello. applause hello. that story has gone from the small screen to the big in the feature film one life. thank you. as i'm now, when i was playing him — how old was i then? — i was in my, yeah, mid 805, so i didn't have to act old — iam old. personally, it meant something to me in a different way because i'm old enough to have remembered the war and remembered the holocaust. i was born in 1937, the end of �*37, and i was 18 months old when war broke out, and when neville chamberlain declared war on adolf hitler.

and so i remember the remnants of the war from about 1942 onwards, the bombing of swansea, and all that sort of thing, and the air raids. so, i remember those first newsreel films and they showed the first signs, the first camps, bergen—belsen. and then years later, the russians released auschwitz and dachau and... and, er, yeah. hello. i'm sorry. i haven't got anything. oh, wait, hold on a moment. chocolate. there we go. actorjohnny flynn plays the young nicholas winton, who was a london city stockbroker when he visited prague in 1938. there he found hundreds of refugees, many of whom had been pushed out of germany and austria by the nazis.

he was shocked by the conditions they were living in and feared for their future with hitler closing in. and so he headed a campaign to bring the children from prague to london. baby cries i'm sorry. i'll... i'll bring more another day. baby screams she pleads being in prague and trying to recreate these harrowing scenes in refugee camps and at the refugee office that he worked in with a tiny team watching people play the parents of children and they're sending their children off and seeing them, kind of, families wrenched apart and knowing what happened to the parents, you get a glimpse into what he would have felt. we are moving the children. in big groups, by train. that's a two—day trip, - which would mean crossing holland and the dutchl have shut their borders tojewish refugees. and they'd have . to cross germany. yes, but they'd only be passing

through and on british visas. with british foster parents waiting. well, that is if you can find british foster parents. - there are 1,000 - children on that list. the welcome may not be as warm as you're all imagining. _ god bless nicholas winton and all people who tried. you know, it's like viktor frankl in man's search for meaning inspired people to survive. don't give in to death. one child who did survive the journey was renate collins, who was put onto a train for london. that's me, innocent little five—year—old. this actually is a legal visa. a lot of the children came with visas without the perforations there. that was ripped off a sheet. some came with illegal ones with no perforations. and if you notice, they've got

the swastika on the back. 0h. the germans wanted us to go — look. wow. i had a temperature of 104 and chicken pox, and my mother didn't want to put me on the train. and our doctor said, "if you don't put her on this train, she'll never go." and do you remember saying goodbye to your mother? oh, i remember, yes, because i was so poorly. but only one parent was allowed on the platform. and before the train went out, i remember the german soldiers were in a line. and theyjust lined up and kept the parents from going near the train. but on the film, it shows the parents going right up to the carriages. we are working to evacuate these children by train to safety in britain. why are you doing this, mrwinton?i to secure the children's visas, winton and his team had to find

foster families for them before they came to britain. well, i'd written a letter via my mother, which my mother had quite good english, that if they didn't have any spinach in england, and plenty of ice cream, i could be a very good girl. because you didn't like spinach? but there wasn't much ice cream during the war anyway! so i don't know. but i only knew two words of english — yes and no. so how difficult? how quickly did you learn? that's difficult. when do you say yes and when you say no? renate�*s mother and grandmother was shot dead while being transferred between concentration camps. herfather and uncle died in auschwitz. in total, she lost 64 members of her family during the war. so this was from a concentration camp? it doesn't say which

concentration camp, but i think terezin was the concentration camp where they went to first and then they were distributed all over the place afterwards. what does it say? "many birthday wishes. "we think continually of you. "are well, hope you, too. "much love, kind regards, "and thanks to your foster parents." and you see, my foster parent tried to... "many thanks for birthday greetings." and then he had got confirmed that he couldn't reply. it was too late, so... renate was on the last train to leave prague. the next train, the ninth, was due to leave on the day world war ii was declared and the borders closed. 251 children were on the train ready to leave for great britain when they were stopped by the nazis. announcement: london, liverpool street. _ the last train and all the others that he would have organised after that point didn't leave.

for him, it was a tragedy, and he almost can't admit to himself what he knows to be true, which is what happened to those children. and i think only two of them survived the war. so, that was a deep shame that he had to overcome. and so it was a lovely thing for him to meet the children as adults. we asked as many as possible of these grown—up children to get in touch with us, so they'd have the chance to thank mr winton personally. can i ask, is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to nicholas winton? if so, could you stand up, please? after the first that's life episode featuring sir nicholas winton�*s story aired in 1988, dozens more survivors got in touch with the programme. sir nicholas was invited back to the studio, and this time the audience included many more of the children from the prague trains and their descendants. from this moment on, they called themselves nicky's children, and renate

was one of them. applause tv clip: ..mr winton personally. renate: here's me. tv cup: can | ask, _ is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to nicholas winton? and you'd never met him at this point? no, never. no. tv clip: in the meantime, mr winton. .. _ we often wondered who had brought us. and of course, then, there were 40 of us came up to that show. and of course, since then, we've done all sorts of things with him, you know? and what kind of a man was he, in your experience? he was very introverted. he didn't want anybody to know, actually. he didn't want any accolade. do you ever think about the children and what happened to them? yes. yes, i do from time to time. do you? no, not really. well, maybe a little, recently. it is incredible - what you achieved.

oh, i don't think of it that way. no, no, no, no. i mean it, truly. i mean, you should be proud. save one life, save i the world, you know? well, it's nothing to brag about. i mean, look at doreen and trevor. they did far more than i did. they took all the risks. they actually stayed in prague. you know, nicky, telling people isn't bragging. i i admired his sense of anonymity. he didn't want to be exposed or revealed. i think he was quite a remarkable man because of his humility. and so... i'd seen that bbc documentary with esther rantzen just some years ago, and i admired his low—key presentation, how he was baffled by esther rantzen�*s revelation of his work and his eagerness to give credit to the other

people, who were the kindertrain people, who organised the children's escape from prague. cutting! like sir nicholas, sir anthony was also kept in the dark about the film's that's life studio audience. he was not told until hours before filming that the scene's extras were, in fact, the descendants and relatives of the original refugee children. thank you very much. well done. oh, god. it's too much. so you lost family in the holocaust? ancestors. we lost family, ancestors. quite an event. you know, we can overstate and it becomes very dramatic, but it was quite an event seeing them all there and knowing that some of them were the grandchildren and maybe the children as well of the survivors. it was really quite

an emotional moment. i suppose with nicky, his thing that anthony captures so well is he shrugs off and he prays and he's incredibly humble. he didn't tell anyone what he'd done in the '30s until years later, when the story was sort of dragged out of him and the scrapbook was found and he went on that's life. he had to be kind of duped into going onto it. it's estimated that there are 6,000 people alive today because of the prague rescue.

none of them would have known of sir nicholas and his team's involvement in that rescue had it not been for a scrapbook which documented the details of all the children needing to be saved. this is a copy of the original scrapbook. wow. i mean, it looks incredibly real to me. yeah, it's incredible to have it all in one place. wow. this is the list of people, yeah, who were going to make it, hopefully. and the houses that they were going to. and you can see, like, swapping things around. they had to make the difficult decision to split up siblings, i think. the scrapbook is now housed at yad vashem, israel's holocaust museum. here in london, the wiener

holocaust library holds the uk's most extensive collection of holocaust material, and in amongst its archive are the heartbreaking letters sent by renate's family. she donated all her documents to this library. the tragic thing is that we don't seem to learn and, all politics apart and religions apart, and so on, it's very interesting because winton said something so interesting, which i responded to. he was interviewed, i think, by an american journalist. he said, "do you believe in god?" and he said, "well, nazi germany was playing for "god. "britain was praying for god, for peace. "so where's god?" and the otherjournalist asked him, "do you see any hope "for the future?" he said, "no, none at all." startling. and he was very dogmatic. he said, "no, no hope for us, unless we learn to compromise, "unless we learn to listen to the other question, "the other side. "otherwise, there is no hope." there are children here living

in fields, in the open, in mud. the worst of winter's still to come and under the threat of nazi invasion. i have seen this and i cannot unsee it. and because i may be able to do something about it... ..i must...at least try. the task you propose - requires money and visas. i don't have them...yet. there's a scene in which he's asked why he wants to help the children and if he's jewish, and he says, "there are children living in the open, winter "yet to come." i know from reading the accounts that it was really hard to get people, because there was mostlyjewish

refugees, but there were communists and various other groups as well. and to get their kind of spokespeople to hand over the lists of names so that you could actually get in touch with these people and find out who needed to be taken out of the country was really hard because they'd been, you know, knocked back and forth. they'd been on the run for a long time. and thenjust before the story starts, the allied governments have handed over the sudetenland to hitler as a kind of an act of appeasement, and then he ignores the agreement. so they're naturally mistrustful, basically. and i think that's what... so the rabbi is sort of saying, what's your interest in these people? and it's a lovely chance for nicky to spell out who he really is, which is — i love that scene — he says, "i see myself as a european, as a human "being, and i see fellow human beings in distress." and he doesn't see borders and barriers and differences in race and religion. he just sees children that need rescuing. the prague route wasjust

one of a network used to save an estimated 10,000 children from mainland europe. this commemorative service, organised by the association ofjewish refugees, was held at london's liverpool street station in december, on the 85th anniversary of the first kindertransport. to all who lost their lives. alexandra greensted was just seven when she arrived here from prague, weeks before the start of the second world war. at 92, she still remembers sir nicholas winton. 0h, he's wonderful. he was the most wonderful, generous, helpful... you couldn't say enough about him. also at the event was one of sir nicholas�*s actual children, his son nick. he believes one life has captured his father's story brilliantly. it's based on my sister's book, which is true to life, with a few little creative licences.

but sir anthony hopkins, boy, at times i would swear that that's my father in the room. it'sjust extraordinary how he's captured all the little details. i'm talking to you from the wiener holocaust library, which is the uk's holocaust library of record. it feels like an important place to speak to you from. we've also been speaking to some of the survivors and also his son, who said of your portrayal of his father, he told us, "at times, i would swear that's my father "in the room." well, i watched various documentaries on him. i come from a different background, different nationa. .. i'm welsh. but ijust made those translations or transitions. but i watched him very carefully and, as i say, i was impressed by his modesty, his humility. i'm just a cipher. i'm just the kind of actor who just portrays it,

but, no, thank nicholas winton. when i was clearing out all the papers, i came across that old scrapbook from prague. do you remember that? i do, yes. you're not throwing that out? no. i think it could be quite an important note of record in its way. you know, full of history we should learn from. it is. look, maybe the wiener archive might like it in london. - yeah. but what is tragic is this whole wave of prejudice building again. and i think in the human brain, we'rejust stuck. there's something stuck in us, where we cannot move forward. and i was doing some research, and there was a letter, but there was a documentary statement by commandant hoss of auschwitz, and he described how, you know, "well, "i was just doing my duty." ha.

it's just so grotesque. "i was just doing my duty. "i was doing what..." "it was goebbels who was to blame. "hitler was to blame. "himmler was to blame." but we were all responsible. we turned a blind eye. and it is an immense tragedy. life on any side of a conflict is a tragedy. 0ne child's death is a tragedy on both sides. so, what are we to do? my only feeling is that nicholas winton was right. maybe they should put that as like a big brother peace sign. let us compromise. let's compromise. winton had no sentimentality about it. he didn't want to be regarded as a hero. he just hoped that we would learn from it. you don't think we have, is what i'm gathering from that conversation?

well, i do. i think we can have. i mean, fortunately, i've been around a long time. so, i remember the end of the war. and i remember standing in trafalgar square with cnd, campaign for nuclear disarmament, november1961. and bertrand russell was standing there with a microphone, he was very old, and he said, "if you're "all alive next year, you'll all be very lucky." well, that was 61 years ago. so we weren't nuked. but there is an insanity in us. how can we do what we do? and we all are there. we can march and we can say and we can protest. we point one finger, there'll be pointing three back at ourselves. we are the human beast. and it is a tragedy, but it's the human tragedy. it's quite extraordinary. and i think there's some... i didn't realise how much this film meant to me until, you know, your question.

and because it is part of my life, really. i mean, i was never involved in, you know... but i was around, i was a boy. i was growing up. it's good to see you. good to see you. we interviewed johnny flynn. he said — you know, meeting you, for him, was clearly, really important. clearly, sort of meeting one of his heroes as a young actor. did you have people like that when you were young that you met, that you looked up to in the way thatjohnny flynn looked up to you? oh, yes. peter o'toole, i remember seeing him at the bristol old vic, playing jimmy porter. ten years later, he was playing my father in lion in winter. and laurence olivier, i worked with him. my life has unfolded in a way which is beyond my — i couldn't have organised anything like that. i couldn't have dreamed that up. but i've been the most fortunate person in the world.

the funny thing, now, at 86 years of age and facing, you know, the inevitable, and i feel more at peace with that than i've ever done, is the fact that i can't really take credit for any of it. my life is a complete mystery to me. i don't even know why i act. so when any young actor says, "how do you do it?", i say, "i don't know. "learn your lines, show up and don't bump "into the furniture!" but use compassion. compassion. thanks so much. what a treat. compassion, a quality that sir nicholas winton also had in abundance. well, you can see now from our conversation, there was nothing heroic about it. it'sjust a question of organisational work.

hello, there. some very mild conditions around at the moment. plenty of cloud, but also some sunshine at times, such as here in aberdeenshire on friday. a blustery day of weather but temperatures lifted 15 degrees. 15.5 degrees in the south—east of northern ireland, but towards western coasts, a very different story. still mild, but grey, drizzly, lots of low cloud, mistand murk, and not

a lot is set to change through the weekend. it certainly stays mild and it will be blustery, too, with brisk south—westerly winds blowing. on saturday, high pressure remains to the south, we keep the strength of the wind, this cold front just thinking a little further southwards, but not making too many inroads at all into the south of england and wales, where, again, a very mild start on saturday morning. temperatures in double figures, clear spells through the night. further north, here a chillier start to the day but again temperatures well above the average, but it's across northern england, northern ireland, and eastern scotland where we see the best of the day's sunshine. still strong, gusty winds to the east of the pennines, showers piling into western scotland, and where we have this cold front across wales and stretching into east anglia, some outbreaks of rain on and off, but it is grey, drizzly, mild for the south of the front, 13 or 14 celsius. even in cardiff, temperatures all the way up to 11 degrees as we go through the afternoon, for the six nations rugby, there will be a brisk,

westerly, south—westerly wind blowing, as well. on sunday, a few changes. now, this is a warm front. it will be dragging that very mild air further northwards, as we head throughout the day, so we will see some rain to start the day in northern ireland, that rain pushing into western scotland, where it will turn really quite heavy, particularly as we go into the evening. again, very mild—feeling conditions, 8 to 14 celsius, those temperatures picking up in northern scotland late in the night. some particularly heavy downpours across western scotland as we head through sunday night and again into monday, some more spots across western brasstown into argyll could see as much as 150 to 170 millimetres of rainfall. elsewhere, across the rest of the uk on monday, largely dry, again, if you are spots of dried to the west, the rest of the brightness will be towards the east but temperatures once again for many 12 to 14 celsius. there will be some brightness around on monday. on tuesday, we start to see perhaps a little bit more in the way of rain, and a northerly wind developing

could bring us colder conditions into wednesday.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the us strikes targets in iraq and syria, in retaliation for a deadly attack by iran—backed militias, according to the pentagon. three us servicemembers were killed in that january 28 attack on us military outposts in jordan. earlier, president biden took part in a solemn transfer of the remains those soldiers in delaware. he's been facing pressure at home to take action to show america's resolve. hello, i'm caitriona perry. you're very welcome.

us military officials have confirmed that at 4pm us eastern time, american forces began airstrikes against iranian—backed targets in iraq and syria. they hit 85 targets in total. white house national security spokesmanjohn kirby also added that three facilities were hit in iraq and four in syria. president biden has issued a statement on the strikes, saying: the strikes are in retaliation for a deadly drone attack on us forces. shortly before the us strikes just hours ago, president biden took part in a ceremony for the repatriation

of the bodies of the three american soldiers killed