𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐲 ?
ℙ𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕥 𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕘𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕡 𝕠𝕗 𝕔𝕪𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕡 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒𝕟𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕒𝕝𝕤𝕠 𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪 𝕗𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕤 𝕨𝕖𝕝𝕝. 𝕆𝕟𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕝𝕦𝕕𝕖𝕕 𝕊𝕡𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝔻𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕌𝕡𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕠𝕗 𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕦𝕝𝕥𝕤, ℍ𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝕞𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕒, 𝕗𝕚𝕩𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕠𝕗 𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕥 𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕝𝕠𝕥𝕤 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖. 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕕 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕤 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖. ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝐉𝐁𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐘 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦:
𝔾𝕞𝕒𝕚𝕝: 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐲𝐣𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐲𝟔𝟎𝟔@𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥.𝐜𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 +𝟒𝟒 𝟕𝟒𝟓𝟔 𝟎𝟓𝟖𝟔𝟐𝟎 . 𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕥𝕖𝕒𝕞 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕡 𝕞𝕖. 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕀 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕀 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕣𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕥𝕠 𝕒𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 %𝟙𝟘𝟘 𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕧𝕚𝕔𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕘𝕦𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕒𝕝𝕤𝕠 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
10/20/24
Full Review
Audience Member
Why Can't Anyone Tell the Story Well?
This is the second documentary I've watched on this subject. This one feels more comprehensive--and comprehensible--than the other one, but it's still not a very compelling telling of what is a fascinating story, really. It's pretty much true that there are more documentaries about the Holocaust than just about any other subject, probably far more than there need to be. It's also true that the Holocaust is seen to be awards bait, that it's assumed that movies about it have a better-than-average chance of winning Oscars. To the extent that Kate Winslet apparently once played herself on a TV show making a movie about the Holocaust so she could finally win an Oscar--and that the movie for which she did, indeed, win Best Actress was about the Holocaust. However, that seems to mean that people making movies on the subject don't try as hard, assuming their subject matter will do half their work for them.
This story, however, was personal to director Melissa Hacker. In part, it is the story of her own mother. Through a combination of antisemitism and isolationism, many countries had strict immigration quotas in the years between World War I and World War II. The known practical effect of this was that many Jews who wanted desperately to get out of countries which would be controlled by the Nazis during World War II were unable to emigrate to countries which would not be so controlled. However, the UK was willing to take in what eventually came to nearly 10,000 children, mostly Jewish and all unaccompanied by their families, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Hacker's mother was one of them. Almost all of the children survived the war, but few of them had any family left at war's end. They struggled to fit in, to find a place to belong, to come to terms with what happened to them--and, almost as important, what didn't.
Notable about this telling is the examination of both the overall history and the specific stories of some of the [i]kinder[/i], including how it later changed how they treated their own children in turn. I did not feel the other documentary I've seen about it gave a very good overview of the story, as I recall; my review implies that it told various individuals' stories and not the framework in which they happened. This movie uses the stories of the people interviewed to explore details within the larger history, and I think that's the best way to go, given that this is not a well-known event in history. I think most people are unaware that it happened at all; in fact, I think most people are unaware of the entire immigration situation in the years between the wars. There seems to be this assumption that everyone was basically caught napping, and everyone was completely surprised both when the Nazis invaded and when the oppression of Jews started, that no one left the various countries because they weren't expecting what happened. The truth, alas, is much more complicated.
One of the things the movie discusses which I think is also less well covered is the emotional reactions of the younger survivors. Few of the [i]kinder[/i] themselves understood what was happening, though their parents must have if they were sending them away, and they relate last memories--the last time one saw her family, the last letter another received from her father. Possibly the last letter her father ever sent. One had a younger sibling who was too young to be considered for the transport, another was too old to easily find a foster home upon reaching the UK. And when they had their own children, there was always the fear that their children would in turn be lost to them. One woman expresses uncertainty if she would have sent her own children away, if faced with a similar choice. The children's lives were saved, certainly, ten thousand spared out of millions of Jewish children, but they bear the emotional scars as much if not more than other survivors who were actually in the camps.
Even in the UK, the children mostly weren't really wanted. The US, a larger and more populous nation, didn't even take in ten thousand. The secret shame of the twentieth century is that the answer to the question, "Why didn't people leave?" is, in most cases, "Because they had nowhere to go, nowhere that would take them in." It isn't merely true of the Holocaust, either. In many cases, people who wanted to escape war, ethnic cleansing, and dictators could not find another country to go to even if they managed to get out of their own. Obviously, the best answer is to fix what's wrong in the country you live in. However, these children weren't able to. They and their families were caught up in a tide of history, and it was the children's luck that they had somewhere to go. And the response to that shame, over and over, has just been to pretend that nothing could have been done. For these children, something was done; for millions of others, it wasn't enough.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
It was interesting to see the effects of the transport on the Kinder's kinder
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
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