BBC omitted ‘Jewish’ from kindertransport film blurb

BBC promotional material for a Sir Anthony Hopkins film about the kindertransport has been edited after the term “Jewish” was omitted, sparking a backlash that Jews were being “written out of history”.

One Life tells the story of Sir Nicholas Winton’s efforts to save hundreds of children from the expanding Nazi regime, most of whom were Jewish.

But the website of the film’s co-producer BBC Film omitted the word “Jewish” from information about the new release, stating only that Sir Nicholas rescued “669 children”.

Fellow producers See-saw films used the same wording on its website, as did distributors Warner Bros. HMV and a string of cinemas across the UK, including the Peckhamplex in London, posted on X, formerly Twitter, to promote a film they described as a tale of a man “who helped save Central European children from the Nazis”.

Promotional material has now been edited to describe the children as predominantly Jewish, after accusations that their identity was being erased.

Daniel Sugarman, the director of public affairs at the Board of Jewish Deputies, wrote online that “we’re getting written out of our own history”.

HMV apologised in a post on X, saying: “We understand how this choice of wording could be interpreted and we have updated it to say that Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi-occupation.”

Descriptions of the film on the websites of Warner Bros and the BBC were updated to include the phrase “predominantly Jewish children””.

Sir Anthony plays an older Sir Nicholas in the film. On the eve of Czechoslovakia’s annexation by Nazi Germany, Sir Nicholas drew up a list of vulnerable children and arranged transport to Britain and safe homes on arrival.

His achievements were largely unknown until Dame Esther Rantzen revealed them live on television in front of an audience of people he had saved.

Sir Nicholas died in 2015.