Rating: 
Summary: Into the arms of strangers-Stories of the kindertransport
Review: The Kindertransport was the removal of several trainloads of Jewish children from Nazi Germany's territory to England during 1939-40. The story is told by the now aged survivors amid photographic and archival movie flashbacks to those lives and times. The children mostly came from Germany, but some of them in the Kindertransport came from Austria and Czechoslovakia. They ranged in age from 2 to 16 years of age, and because there were no adults on these trains the older children had to look after the younger ones. Each of the Kindertransport narrators has a very sad but often triumphant story to tell of being suddenly separated from their loved ones and then cast into a completely unkown and frightening journey. Already having been traumatized by everyday violent anti-Semitic attacks by Nazis in their schools and on the streets, now they were all headed towards uncertain fates in England. As the movie's title says, they were headed into the arms of strangers. There were very broad ranges of experiences either endured or enjoyed by these children. Some of them were made into virtual slave servants while others were cared for by loving families. It was a matter of pure luck how each of them would wind up. However, all of the survivors say that they were very well treated by the friendly English school children This was a great relief after having been mercilessly hounded and beaten by the children of Nazis and anti-Semites where they had come from. A more senior survivor recounts how, after already enduring harsh treatment by his host family as one of the older boys in the Kindertransport, he was rounded up by the British Army along with German refugee grownups right after war had broken out between England and Germany. They were first placed in one of England's detention camps and then taken by ship to Australia. During the two month ship journey to an unknown destination, along with his fellow captives the youth wasn't given adequate food or water until they reached Australia. There he was treated humanely, and given the chance to return to England as a soldier in the British Army. He joined up and soon found himself fighting German soldiers in France and then all across Europe. Indeed, he was among the British soldiers which liberated the very same Nazi death camp where his family had perished. Throughout his narrative, this multiple survivor of both the Holocaust and World War II wonders that he is still here and ponders why he was spared while so many people around him had their lives extinguished either by warfare or by Nazi mass murder. A very few of the surviving Kindertransport alumni tell of their at first bizarre reuinions with parents who they had given up for lost. Having spent their childhood years growing up amidst strangers, some of whom had become their surrogate family, it was very strange to become reunited with parents they had left "forever." These were, at first, unfamiliar and worn out people who had struggled through the war to survive and be reunited with their loved ones. New relationships had to be formed while those with their adoptive English family had to be left behind. Yet those few penultimately lucky ones wound up having had the the best of all cruel worlds because against all odds they and their parents had survived one of history's worst examples of man's inhumanity to man. INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS tells very interesting and poignant stories by those whose lives make up the narrative of this movie. Amid the many terrors of the period told by the stories there is an undercurrent of hope and even a celebration of the power of the human spirit. The film is well organized and skillfully edited, making a major contribution to the historical record of this priod in relatively recent history. The movie is very worthwhile seeing, especially by teenaged children who can learn important life lessons from this rare glimpse into the challenges faced by children not so different from themselves, who were forced to live through the Kindertransport. Excellent movie!
Rating:
Summary: ESCAPING THE HOLOCAUST FROM CHILDREN'S POINT OF VIEW
Review: The Kindertransport was the removal of several trainloads of Jewish children from Nazi Germany's territory to England during 1939-40. The story is told by the now aged survivors amid photographic and archival movie flashbacks to those lives and times. The children mostly came from Germany, but some of them in the Kindertransport came from Austria and Czechoslovakia. They ranged in age from 2 to 16 years of age, and because there were no adults on these trains the older children had to look after the younger ones. Each of the Kindertransport narrators has a very sad but often triumphant story to tell of being suddenly separated from their loved ones and then cast into a completely unkown and frightening journey. Already having been traumatized by everyday violent anti-Semitic attacks by Nazis in their schools and on the streets, now they were all headed towards uncertain fates in England. As the movie's title says, they were headed into the arms of strangers. There were very broad ranges of experiences either endured or enjoyed by these children. Some of them were made into virtual slave servants while others were cared for by loving families. It was a matter of pure luck how each of them would wind up. However, all of the survivors say that they were very well treated by the friendly English school children This was a great relief after having been mercilessly hounded and beaten by the children of Nazis and anti-Semites where they had come from. A more senior survivor recounts how, after already enduring harsh treatment by his host family as one of the older boys in the Kindertransport, he was rounded up by the British Army along with German refugee grownups right after war had broken out between England and Germany. They were first placed in one of England's detention camps and then taken by ship to Australia. During the two month ship journey to an unknown destination, along with his fellow captives the youth wasn't given adequate food or water until they reached Australia. There he was treated humanely, and given the chance to return to England as a soldier in the British Army. He joined up and soon found himself fighting German soldiers in France and then all across Europe. Indeed, he was among the British soldiers which liberated the very same Nazi death camp where his family had perished. Throughout his narrative, this multiple survivor of both the Holocaust and World War II wonders that he is still here and ponders why he was spared while so many people around him had their lives extinguished either by warfare or by Nazi mass murder. A very few of the surviving Kindertransport alumni tell of their at first bizarre reuinions with parents who they had given up for lost. Having spent their childhood years growing up amidst strangers, some of whom had become their surrogate family, it was very strange to become reunited with parents they had left "forever." These were, at first, unfamiliar and worn out people who had struggled through the war to survive and be reunited with their loved ones. New relationships had to be formed while those with their adoptive English family had to be left behind. Yet those few penultimately lucky ones wound up having had the the best of all cruel worlds because against all odds they and their parents had survived one of history's worst examples of man's inhumanity to man. INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS tells very interesting and poignant stories by those whose lives make up the narrative of this movie. Amid the many terrors of the period told by the stories there is an undercurrent of hope and even a celebration of the power of the human spirit. The film is well organized and skillfully edited, making a major contribution to the historical record of this priod in relatively recent history. The movie is very worthwhile seeing, especially by teenaged children who can learn important life lessons from this rare glimpse into the challenges faced by children not so different from themselves, who were forced to live through the Kindertransport. Excellent movie!
Rating:
Summary: Powerful account of an untold story
Review: The story of the Kindertransport may be unfamiliar to many, even those who consider themselves WWII buffs. What more human and moving of a story can one imagine than desperate Jews sending their children to a foreign country to be raised by non-Jews who didn't even speak their language. The interviews are powerful in that they capture the frustration and the anxiety experienced on all sides in this true account. I especially enjoyed some of the extra features, including the personal account provided by Sir Richard Attenborough. I would be interested in hearing further accounts of those sent to live in the English countryside during the Blitz, as suggested in the delightful film "Hope and Glory," or even hear accounts of those sent to Australia. There is perhaps nothing more emotionally gripping than the accounts of children caught up in war.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful account of an untold story
Review: The story of the Kindertransport may be unfamiliar to many, even those who consider themselves WWII buffs. What more human and moving of a story can one imagine than desperate Jews sending their children to a foreign country to be raised by non-Jews who didn't even speak their language. The interviews are powerful in that they capture the frustration and the anxiety experienced on all sides in this true account. I especially enjoyed some of the extra features, including the personal account provided by Sir Richard Attenborough. I would be interested in hearing further accounts of those sent to live in the English countryside during the Blitz, as suggested in the delightful film "Hope and Glory," or even hear accounts of those sent to Australia. There is perhaps nothing more emotionally gripping than the accounts of children caught up in war.
Rating:
Summary: Moving without unnecessary manipulation
Review: This documentary is very powerful, informative, moving and very interesting. Many documentaries tend to be a bit stale while this movie's sound and music keep it far from being dry. The score is one of the most beautiful I've ever heard, while the sound keeps you surprised at every turn. The stories of the survivors are varied enough to not make you feel you are hearing the same story told over and over for 2 hours. Although the subject matter is heart-wrenching the stories are told in a way that allows you to watch the movie without sobbing throughout the show. The Holocaust is one of modern day's horror stories and to once again put those images of starved and abused figures in front of the viewer is not the filmmaker's intent...those images are rarely used in this film. This movie is a story of hope.
Rating:
Summary: Adopted
Review: This is one of the more moving documentaries I have seen. It accomplishes something wonderful--takes the viewer into the lives and minds of a handful of children whose parents managed to get them onto Britain's World War II Kindertransport relief effort. After the March 1938 Anschluss, Great Britain agreed to accept all Jewish children whose care could be guaranteed, and by November 9 and 10 1938, 431 children were placed. Kristallnacht opened the floodgates, and by September 1939 another 9,354 children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia streamed into Britain with help from 5 groups including B'nai Brith and the Refugee Children's Movement; 1,850 more came via Youth Aliya and agricultural groups. More than 11,000 children were thus saved from Nazi fires that extinguished the lives of 6 million Jewish people, including 1 million children.
The statistics pale, however, next to the human faces and stories that this film provides. Viewers meet perhaps a dozen aging survivors of the trauma that both preserved their lives and separated them from their parents--usually, forever. Not all parents could stand the strain. One woman recounts how her father pulled her out of the train window as it left the station without her and all the horrors that befell her family afterwards. Each story is more painful and enduring than the last. These children endured the direst imaginable circumstances, and yet learned afterwards that far worse had happened to their families. There are as many layers as people here, all of whom made something of their lives. Yet the film is accessible to everyone--and especially meaningful for children who were themselves adopted. Alyssa A. Lappen
Rating:
Summary: IF YOU INTERESTED IN THIS SUBJECT....
Review: This was an excellent movie...If you are interested in this topic, you will also probably enjoy the critically acclaimed books of Dorit B. Whiteman (she is a Holocaust survivor herself as well as a pysychologist): "The Uprooted", which insightfully examines how some Jews (including many Kindertransport members) managed to miraculously escape Nazi occupied countries and describes the emotional aftermaths of their ordeals, and "Escape Via Siberia", which tells the dramatic story of a Polish boy who surived exile in Siberia and joined the only Russian Kindertransport.
Rating:
Summary: Into the arms of strangers-Stories of the kindertransport
Review: This was without a doubt the most heartwrenching movie I have ever seen. The interviews with the actual children were very touching. Some saw their parents murdered right in front of them while others were being tormented with the unknown of what happened to their parents once they said goodbye to the at the train station. What angered me was how the US refused to help sponsor these children because it "went against the law of God". As a parent, I could never imagine having to let my child go to another country and stay with strangers, but they knew if they didn't the children would probably die. This is a must see for anyone with a heart.
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