A MEMORIAL garden is set to be renamed in honour of a British humanitarian who saved more than 600 children during the Second World War.
The Holocaust garden in Hendon Park could be renamed ‘The Sir Nicholas Winton Holocaust Memorial Garden’.
Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia at the start of the Holocaust, with many of the children finding a new home in Barnet.
Cllr Dean Cohen will propose the change at an annual meeting next week, and said it was important to honour the values of solidarity and civic courage.
He said: “Sir Nicholas Winton, in acting to save so many children, embodied these values and his example should continue to be recognised and remembered.
“Renaming the Holocaust Memorial Garden in Hendon Park in his honour would seem a fitting tribute.”
The change was petitioned to Cllr Cohen by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organisation which campaigns to recognise Holocaust rescuers.
Sir Winton received an MBE in 1983 and was knighted in 2003 before being honoured in a set of Royal Mail stamps after his death at 106-years-old last year.
Becoming known as the “British Schindler”, Sir Winston’s operation later became known as the Czech Kindertransport.
The proposal to rename the park, which was initially discussed in last Thursday’s environment committee, will now be discussed on May 24.
