Just when you thought you'd seen everything there ever was to
see about World War II... along comes yet another documentary.
Into The Arms Of Strangers covers the Kindertransport:
a British program that rescued 10 000 Jewish children from Nazi
Germany in the months preceding the war.
The film starts with a glimpse at the sunny, carefree days preceding the Nazi rise to power. Things gradually became very ominous, to the point virtually every Jew in Germany, Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia was desperate to get out. After the infamous "night of broken glass", things became grim enough that parents were willing to part with their young children for the sake of getting them to safety. By this point, many foreign powers were condemning the state of affairs, but Great Britain was the only country that would accept refugees, and only children at that.
It's a really heartbreaking story, expertly told with genuine pictures and film footage, reinforced with testimony from people who were there. You hear from British and German coordinators, foster parents, and of course, some of the children. It's a very moving experience that further drives home what a humongous tragedy the Third Reich created. Most of the kids never saw their parents again. Even those few lucky enough to get reunited still endured a terrible ordeal.
If you don't have a lump in your throat throughout long stretches of this movie, you might want to have your pulse checked.
I wholeheartedly recommend Into The Arms Of Strangers. It's a perspective on World War II that most of us haven't seen yet, and it's very well-done.