By Lydia Warren An archivist has unearthed a long-lost letter written to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 by a London stockbroker asking the United States to help Czech children escape the Nazis. Nicholas Winton, who ended up saving 669 children - many of them Jewish - on the eve of World War II, later received a letter saying that U.S. immigration laws meant that nothing could be done. Winton, now 104, mentioned the letter in an interview with CBS 60 Minutes and when it aired, David Langbart, an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, went searching for the note, which had not been seen in 75 years.
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Nicholas Winton, then 29, spent his 2 weeks vacation in 1938 traveling to Prague and he left with a list of the names of hundreds of children
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After forging documents and bribing officials, he saved 669 children - many of whose parents died in concentration camps
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In 1939, he wrote to President Roosevelt asking if there was anything the U.S. could do - but an official responded saying they could not help
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An archivist saw his story on CBS and has now found the original letter
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Winton kept his story quiet for nearly 50 years before featuring on a British TV show and even the children did not know he had saved them
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