If you think about it, there is no way that you got to this point in you life without help, big or small. Someone believed in you. Someone helped you get your first job. Someone spent countless hours taking care of you as a child. Someone counseled you through a trial.

Whoever they are, and whatever they did, these people made sacrifices to serve you. They stopped thinking about themselves for a time and considered your needs greater than their own. This is the kind of love that leaves ripples of good throughout history; this is the kind of love that literally changes lives. Strive to love others in this way every single day.

That’s exactly the kind of love that Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker and humanitarian, showed to the Jewish Czechoslovakian children he saved from certain death back in 1938. He was preparing to leave for a ski trip in Switzerland when he received a phone call from a buddy named Martin Blake. Blake told Winton to forgo his ski trip and come to Prague instead to help out with “a most interesting assignment.”

Winton arrived in Prague to discover thousands of refugees living in camps as enemies of Hitler. After the news of Kristallnacht reached Prague, the outbreak of WWII seemed inevitable. Winton decided to take responsibility for the lives of many Jewish refugee children as possible into his own hands. It was his duty, and he dedicated countless hours to save these children. He was able to personally play a role in the rescue of 669 Jewish Czechoslovakian children.

The most amazing part of this story is Winton’s selflessness. He told no one of his rescue efforts, not even his wife, who only learned of her husbands work after discovering a scrapbook with the names of all the children in their attic. The video above is an excerpt from the BBC show That’s Life that aired in 1988, fifty years after Winton’s heroic efforts took place.

Read more about his story here.