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59 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not a rehash - an ORIGINAL , inspiring documentary, September 23, 2001
I could watch this documentary over and over. For those who may not know of the Kindertransport, it was a major effort to get children out of Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries and into Britain. Parents had to give up their children to strangers, hoping for the best. Years later, the film-makers have interviewed actual participants in the Kindertransport and done an amazing job. This one stands out for several reasons. First, the accounts, told from the point of view those who were in the Kindertransport, are vivid and engrossing, revealing the sense of wonder, fear and courage the children experienced as they were given up by their parents. The score which accompanies the movie adds poignancy and depth without being manipulative or overly sentimental - not an easy task to pull off. If you still have doubts about purchasing this movie, rent it first (it just came out in a rental version). One viewing and I guarantee you'll want to own your own copy.
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41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My mother's story, March 11, 2002
My mother left Vienna when she was 16, in the spring of 1939. Though she'd told my sister and me stories about traveling on a train and ending up with a family in England, neither of us had much of a sense of what had happened beyond her safe arrival in England, her being taken in by a loving family, and her eventual emigration to the US. Into the Arms of Strangers helped me better understand the story of her life and that of thousands of others. The stories are gripping; the film is well-conceived and produced. The interviews are powerful. The special power of this film is that it puts human faces on a moral outrage so enormous that we easily lose any sense of scale. Each interviewee tells a story which, though deeply personal, touched me as a fellow human being and as the child of a kindertransport child. This film helps us to understand the infinite worth of each individual-- those who were blessed with survival, and those who perished. In a few months, my mother will turn 80. After viewing this film, I have the overwhelming desire to hear her tell the story of the kindertransport from her own experience. We must hear and pass on these stories before they are lost, and Into the Arms of Strangers is an excellent place to begin.
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41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adopted, December 14, 2001
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
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