Grete Winton was the Danish-born wife of Nicholas Winton, the British humanitarian remembered for helping rescue hundreds of children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia before the Second World War. Yet Grete’s place in his story is more important than simply being “Nicholas Winton’s wife.” She met him after the war, built a family with him in England, raised three children, endured the heartbreaking loss of their youngest son, and later played a major part in bringing Nicholas’ wartime work to wider public attention.
Born Grete Gjelstrup in Denmark in 1919, she met Nicholas while both were working in Paris in 1948. They married only months later in her hometown of Vejle and remained together for more than 50 years, until her death in 1999.
For decades, their life looked far more like an ordinary family story than the biography of a future knight and internationally honored humanitarian. That changed dramatically in the late 1980s, when documents connected to Nicholas’ rescue work resurfaced and eventually led to the emotional television moment that made his story known around the world.
Who Was Grete Winton Before She Married Nicholas Winton?
Grete’s birth name was Grete Gjelstrup.
Records consistently place her birth on December 21, 1919, in Denmark. Genealogical records connect her more specifically with Vejle, the Danish town where she would later marry Nicholas.
She was born into a Danish family years before her future husband became known for helping children escape Nazi persecution.
Her father is identified in genealogical records as Einar Gjelstrup and her mother as Anna Marie Nielsen. These records also list siblings including Kirsten and Poul Herman Gjelstrup.
Unlike Nicholas, Grete never became a major public figure in her own right.
There are no extensive interviews covering her childhood, school years, ambitions, or early private life.
What becomes much clearer is her story after the Second World War.
What Did Grete Winton Do for Work?
Grete worked as a secretary in Paris.
The Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust says she was the Danish secretary of Nicholas’ employer, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It was there that Nicholas encountered the woman who would become his wife.
This detail is important because it explains that Grete and Nicholas did not meet during his famous pre-war rescue operation.
Their relationship began almost a decade later.
By then, Europe had survived the war, Nicholas had completed wartime service, and both were building post-war professional lives.
A natural related article would be Nicholas Winton’s life after the Kindertransport rescue.
How Did Grete Gjelstrup Meet Nicholas Winton?
They met in Paris in March 1948.
Nicholas was working for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Grete worked there as a secretary.
Their relationship developed quickly.
By October of the same year, they were married.
That means only around seven months passed between their first meeting and their wedding.
Despite that fast beginning, their marriage would last for more than half a century.
When Did Grete and Nicholas Winton Marry?
Grete Gjelstrup married Nicholas Winton on October 31, 1948.
The wedding took place in Vejle, Denmark, Grete’s hometown.
Historical family photographs preserved by the Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust show Grete and Nicholas after the wedding with Grete’s sister Kirsten.
The wedding happened before Nicholas was famous.
At that point, the wider public did not know him as the man who had helped organize the escape of hundreds of children from Czechoslovakia.
Grete therefore married Nicholas the private person rather than Nicholas the celebrated humanitarian.
Did Grete Know About Nicholas Winton’s Rescue Work When They Married?
This question is more complicated than many online biographies suggest.
A popular version of the story says that Nicholas never told Grete anything about the children and that she accidentally discovered the entire secret in the attic in 1988.
That version has been repeated for years.
However, later reporting suggests reality may have been less dramatic.
The Guardian reported in 2014 that family memories indicated Grete and others may already have known something about Nicholas’ involvement and may even have known about the scrapbook.
The Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust also states that by 1987, Nicholas had already been trying to find an appropriate home for the Kindertransport papers kept in the scrapbook.
So the safest conclusion is not that Grete suddenly discovered a completely unknown secret.
Rather, the documents she encountered or brought renewed attention to became crucial in moving the story toward public recognition.
That difference matters.
What Did Grete and Nicholas Do After Their Wedding?
The couple initially remained connected to Paris.
Then, in 1950, they took an extended delayed honeymoon in the United States.
According to the family archive, they travelled from New York down the East Coast to Key West, Florida, using a car borrowed from Nicholas’ relative Ernest Friedman.
They could have considered remaining in America.
Instead, they wanted to return to post-war Europe.
After approximately three months, they went back to Britain.
Nicholas found work, and the couple settled in Maidenhead, roughly 30 miles west of London.
That became their long-term home.
How Many Children Did Grete Winton Have?
Grete and Nicholas had three children:
Nicholas Winton Jr., Barbara Winton, and Robin Winton.
The family archive gives their birth years as Nicholas in 1952, Barbara in 1953, and Robin in 1956.
Some entertainment databases incorrectly list only two children.
The Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust, which preserves family records, clearly confirms three.
That makes the family archive the stronger source on this point.
Who Was Barbara Winton?
Barbara Winton was Grete and Nicholas’ daughter.
She was born in 1953 and later played a major role in preserving and explaining her father’s legacy.
Barbara eventually wrote If It’s Not Impossible…: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, a biography of her father.
She was also involved with the Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust and helped ensure that his story was presented with historical context rather than myth.
Barbara died in 2022.
Her work became especially important because Nicholas himself was famously modest and often uncomfortable being described as a hero.
A useful internal-link opportunity would be Barbara Winton and how she preserved Nicholas Winton’s legacy.
Who Was Nicholas Winton Jr.?
Nicholas Jr., often called Nick, was Grete and Nicholas’ eldest child.
He was born in 1952.
Compared with his father and sister Barbara, he has maintained a lower public profile.
Family photographs show him participating in important events, including Grete and Nicholas’ golden wedding celebration in 1998.
Because he has generally lived outside celebrity culture, detailed information about his private family and career should not be guessed.
What Happened to Grete’s Youngest Son, Robin?
The most painful event in Grete and Nicholas’ family life concerned their youngest son, Robin.
Robin was born in 1956 and had Down syndrome.
At that time, families were often advised to place children with Down syndrome in residential institutions.
Grete and Nicholas refused.
They chose to raise Robin at home as part of the family.
That decision was significant in an era when disability was treated very differently from today.
Robin was deeply loved by his parents and siblings.
Sadly, he died from meningitis in 1962, just one day before his sixth birthday.
The loss affected the family profoundly.
Did Robin’s Life Influence Nicholas Winton’s Charity Work?
Yes.
After experiencing how little support existed for families raising children with learning disabilities, Nicholas became involved in creating a local support organization.
The family archive says Robin’s condition and the lack of assistance available to families helped motivate Nicholas to establish the Maidenhead branch of what became Mencap.
Grete was part of the family experiencing those challenges directly.
Although public accounts often focus on Nicholas’ later charitable work, the circumstances began inside their home.
That makes Grete’s role in this part of the story easy to overlook.
She was not simply watching Nicholas become involved in disability advocacy.
She was Robin’s mother.
She had lived through the same parenting experience and the same devastating loss.
What Was Grete and Nicholas Winton’s Marriage Like?
Very few intimate details were published.
What is clear is that they remained married from 1948 until Grete’s death in 1999.
That is more than 50 years of marriage.
They built their adult lives in Maidenhead.
Nicholas worked in finance and became involved in local charity and community work.
Grete largely avoided becoming a public personality.
A family photograph survives from their golden wedding celebration in October 1998, showing Grete and Nicholas surrounded by children and grandchildren.
The picture came only about ten months before Grete died.
What Was the Famous Winton Scrapbook?
The scrapbook contained material connected to Nicholas’ efforts in 1938 and 1939 to help children leave Czechoslovakia as Nazi power expanded.
It contained names, addresses, photographs, letters, and other records connected to the children.
For decades, those papers attracted relatively little wider public attention.
Then, during the late 1980s, they began to reach historians and journalists.
This is where Grete became especially important.
The documents were eventually shown to Holocaust researcher Elisabeth Maxwell, wife of newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell. This helped produce press attention and eventually the famous BBC television appearance.
Did Grete Winton Really Discover the Scrapbook in an Attic?
This is the famous version of the story.
Many respected obituaries say Grete found the documents while looking through the attic of their Maidenhead home.
But later family-based reporting complicates that account.
Nicholas himself appears to have been looking for somewhere appropriate to place the papers as early as 1987, while the Guardian noted that family members may already have known about both the rescue activity and scrapbook.
So it is reasonable to say that Grete helped bring the scrapbook back into attention, rather than insisting she uncovered a completely unknown secret for the first time.
The result, however, is not in doubt.
Her involvement helped set in motion events that transformed Nicholas Winton from a largely unknown retired businessman into an internationally recognized humanitarian.
What Happened on That’s Life! in 1988?
Nicholas was invited onto the BBC programme That’s Life!, presented by Esther Rantzen.
He was shown the scrapbook.
Then came the moment that made the story unforgettable.
People sitting around him in the audience were adults who had been among the children rescued decades earlier.
When the presenter asked those who owed their lives to Nicholas Winton to stand, people all around him rose from their seats.
Nicholas became visibly emotional.
The moment has since been watched by millions.
Grete’s decision to help move the documents into public view was part of the chain of events that led to it.
A strong internal-link opportunity would be the emotional That’s Life! moment that revealed Nicholas Winton’s rescued children.
Did Grete Appear on Television?
IMDb credits Grete as appearing as herself in the 1988 episode of That’s Life! connected to Nicholas’ story.
She is also associated with The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton, although that documentary was released after her death and likely used existing footage.
Grete never became a television personality.
Her public appearances were connected to her husband and his story.
Why Was Nicholas Winton’s Work So Important?
Before the Second World War, Nicholas helped organize the transportation of hundreds of mostly Jewish children from endangered Czechoslovakia to Britain.
He worked with others to arrange foster families, travel documents, funding, and transport.
The operation ultimately helped save 669 children, according to the traditional count associated with Winton’s work.
Many of those children later had families of their own.
The Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust estimates that thousands of people are now alive because those children survived.
Nicholas repeatedly rejected grand descriptions of himself.
He insisted he had simply done something practical when help was needed.
Did Grete Live to See Nicholas Receive His Knighthood?
No.
Grete died in 1999.
Nicholas was knighted several years later, in 2003.
She therefore witnessed his story becoming internationally known, but she did not live to see all the honors that followed.
She did see the emotional BBC reunion.
She saw survivors reconnect with Nicholas.
She saw newspaper coverage and growing public recognition.
But many of his most famous honors came after her death.
When Did Grete Winton Die?
Grete Winton died on August 28, 1999.
IMDb and genealogical records give her age as 79 and place her death in Berkshire, England, with IMDb listing Slough specifically.
Her exact cause of death is not clearly established in the strongest readily available sources.
For that reason, it should not be guessed.
Nicholas survived her by almost 16 years.
He died in July 2015 at the age of 106.
How Long Were Grete and Nicholas Married?
They married on October 31, 1948.
Grete died on August 28, 1999.
Their marriage therefore lasted almost 51 years.
They had celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in October 1998, less than a year before her death.
Their marriage covered extraordinary changes.
They met in post-war Europe.
They raised three children.
They lost one child.
They built a long community life in Maidenhead.
Then, near the end of their marriage, Nicholas suddenly became internationally famous for work he had done half a century earlier.
What Was Grete Winton’s Net Worth?
There is no reliable individual net-worth figure for Grete Winton.
She was not a celebrity businessperson.
Her investments, personal assets, and independent finances were not publicly documented in a way that would allow a credible calculation.
Websites that assign exact wealth figures to her are therefore speculating.
Her significance comes from her family and historical role, not from a financial estimate.
Why Is Grete Winton Important in Nicholas Winton’s Story?
Without Grete, Nicholas’ life after the war would have looked very different.
She was his wife for five decades.
She was the mother of his three children.
She shared the experience of raising Robin when parents of children with Down syndrome received far less support than they do today.
She endured Robin’s death.
She built a home with Nicholas in Maidenhead.
And when his wartime papers came back into focus during the late 1980s, Grete helped move the story toward the historians and media who eventually introduced Nicholas to millions of people.
That does not mean she “created” his rescue story.
Nicholas and his colleagues had done that work decades earlier.
But Grete helped make sure it was not forgotten.
Final Thoughts
Grete Winton lived most of her life far from fame.
Born Grete Gjelstrup in Denmark in 1919, she went to work as a secretary in post-war Paris and met Nicholas Winton in March 1948. Seven months later, they married in her hometown of Vejle.
They eventually settled in Maidenhead, England, and had three children: Nicholas Jr., Barbara, and Robin.
Their youngest son’s life and early death became one of the deepest personal experiences of their marriage.
Grete and Nicholas rejected the idea that Robin should automatically live in an institution because he had Down syndrome. They raised him at home until his death from meningitis just before his sixth birthday.
Decades later, another part of their family history moved into public view.
Documents recording Nicholas’ work helping endangered children leave Czechoslovakia resurfaced.
The popular story says Grete discovered the forgotten scrapbook in the attic.
The more careful historical picture suggests she may already have known more than that simple version implies.
What is clear is that she helped the documents reach people who could recognize their historical importance.
That eventually led to newspaper coverage and the unforgettable 1988 BBC reunion in which Nicholas realized that people around him in the studio audience were among those he had helped save.
Grete lived long enough to see that recognition begin.
She died in August 1999, aged 79, after almost 51 years of marriage.
Nicholas would later receive a knighthood and worldwide recognition, but Grete did not live to see all of it.
Still, her place in the story remains important.
She was not simply the wife standing beside a famous humanitarian.
She was part of the family life that followed the war, part of the painful experiences that influenced Nicholas’ later charity work, and part of the process through which his remarkable earlier actions were finally brought before the wider world.
For more carefully researched biographies and family stories, visit Charles Magazine.
FAQs About Grete Winton
Who was Grete Winton?
Grete Winton, born Grete Gjelstrup, was the Danish wife of British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton. They married in 1948 and remained together until her death in 1999.
Where was Grete Winton born?
She was born in Denmark on December 21, 1919. Records connect her family with Vejle, where she later married Nicholas.
How did Grete meet Nicholas Winton?
They met in Paris in March 1948 while working at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Grete worked there as a Danish secretary.
How many children did Grete and Nicholas Winton have?
They had three children: Nicholas Jr., Barbara, and Robin.
Did Grete Winton discover Nicholas Winton’s scrapbook?
Grete played a crucial role in bringing the scrapbook and its records to wider attention, but later historical accounts suggest she may already have known about Nicholas’ rescue work and the papers. The simple “secret discovered accidentally in the attic” version is probably incomplete.
What happened to Grete Winton’s son Robin?
Robin had Down syndrome and was raised at home by Grete and Nicholas. He died from meningitis in 1962, one day before his sixth birthday.
When did Grete Winton die?
Grete died on August 28, 1999, aged 79. She and Nicholas had been married for almost 51 years.
