Gradually, Harris opens out his themes from the simple tale of escape and rescue to broader issues of moral responsibility, family and kinship. Twelve former children (or "Kinder") as well as two mothers and two men who helped organise the rescue operation relate their experiences with dignity and a surprising lack of self-pity. In fact the film's strength is this abundance of vivid, memorable detail, in both the historical clips and the enormously involving testimony of the witnesses themselves. A long afterlife in ancillary outlets and educational institutions is guaranteed.Ī leisurely opening sequence uses well-chosen archive footage to chronicle the rise of Hitler through a bewildered child's eyes, with images such as a bunch of balloons decorated with swastikas or a tiny toddler trying to imitate the Nazi salute. Theatrical prospects for the new film are limited, though it should be of special interest in the UK, where the children were received (the US turned them away on the shameful grounds that separating them from their parents was "contrary to laws of God"), as well as in the countries they fled from.
Harris, who won an Oscar for his previous documentary, The Long Way Home, about Jewish Holocaust survivors, looks a certain contender at the awards again this year. Into the Arms Of Strangers tells the remarkable story of the 10,000 children, mainly Jewish, who were evacuated from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the nine months leading up to World War II.
Prod co: Sabine Films, with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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