INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Warner Bros./Sabine Films Director: Mark Jonathan Harris Writer: Mark Jonathan Harris Cast: Judi Dench (narrator)
Think of "Into the Arms of Strangers" and you might conclude that the movie is about two-income yuppie families that feel guilty about leaving their little ones in the care of nannies. You can't blame these upscale folks for feeling some compunctions about doing this, but ponder the guilt feelings of parents who sent their seven-, eight-, ten- and seventeen-years olds to another country, perhaps for years to come. What's more they knew they may never again see their children. Is this any way to treat your kids? It certainly is, if you're living in Germany years after the rise of Hitler and his Nazi party.
When the so-called National Socialists, freaks from one of the most advanced civilizations in modern history, were elected--yes, elected! to office with 40 percent of the German vote in January 1933--not a whole lot of months passed before they began taking action on the ideologies of Hitler in his "Mein Kampf." In April 1933, the Nazis urged the population to boycott Jewish-owned stores and then successively passed decrees to deny Jews in Germany the right to hold most occupations. The children were forced to attend separate schools to avoid harassment by their fellow students. The smart victims got out of the country when the getting was good. But by November 9, 1938, when in the Kristallnacht tragedy (which involved the smashing of windows in Jewish-owned stores) occurred, Jews were all ready to admit that the Nazis were going to be around for some time to come. Trouble is, the German Jews needed at least three documents in order to leave their country, papers which were difficult to come by, and even worse, most countries refused to allow refugees from the German hellhole to come in. To the disgrace of the United States under a president supposedly loved by Jews, FDR, the U.S. refused to bend the anti-immigration rules to allow these Jews into America.
One hope was left to the ill-fated people under attack in Germany. Children under 17 could leave the country during the years 1938 and 1939 if they did so without their parents, and to the glory of England, that country opened the doors to 10,000 of the youngsters. Many British families, both Jewish and Gentile, opened their arms to the alarmed, even traumatized youth, and those children who could not get adopted were housed in orphanages.
"Into the Arms of Strangers" is a well-meaning documentary about the Kindertransport--the trains and, by extension, the policy of sending these kids out of Germany into the arms of English strangers. The film, which follows the productions of several theater pieces and at least one video entitled "My Knees Were Jumping," could serve as an excellent primer for schoolchildren around the world, particularly since children in school could identify with those their own age who were victimized by psychotic adults and saved by decent grownups from a far more civilized country. Narrated by Judi Dench, the story focuses on a handful of individuals, now in their seventies and eighties, who were members of the Kindertransport ("kind" means "children" in German) sixty-two years ago. As director Mark Jonathan Harris intersperses file clips of the trains heading out of Berlin into the harbor town of Hook of Holland where the kinder would board ships headed across the rough waters of the English Channel, he gives this assortment of now aging folks the opportunity to relate their experiences to the camera. All are obviously grateful to their English "parents," and most never saw their real folks again. Their own parents had mostly been deported in the opposite direction, to the infamous death chambers of Auschwitz, where few people survived.
All but one of the former victims on camera keep dry-eyed as each tells his or her tale of woe and redemption. None have any particular comments about the Germans, but all concentrate sharply on the actual months of the Kindertransport operation and of their lives in England, where for the most part they took on British accents and became for all practical purposes wanted and cherished wards of the British government. (The House of Commons, unless the U.S. Senate, immediately approved of the plan to take in the 10,000 children.)
The most dramatic and heartbreaking story is told by one septuagenarian who had been pulled from the train by her parents who simply could not bear to part from their child. The girl spent the rest of the war in a concentration camp.
However well-meaning the film, "Into the Arms of Strangers" suffers from being structured in the conventional style, a form which has resulted in the public's staying away in droves from documentaries of almost all kinds. Harris trots out one talking head after another, showing redundant file films mostly of trains taking off and Nazi stationmasters waving the pole to send the cars on their way. While the file films may not have been seen before by a wide public, they are simply undramatic, showing the insipid parades that welcomed the Germans wherever they marched, particularly into Austria where they were welcomed with Nazi salutes, flowers, and broad smiles by the hordes of Germanic- speaking people in Vienna and environs.
Despite the movie's recurrences and recapitulations and the plethora of talking heads, we do come away with a greater political consciousness. The country which would supposedly serve as a homeland for the tired and poor--in this case those who would be put to death if not accepted outside their own territory--turned its back on the desperate children. England, by startling contrast, not only tolerated these kids but from a government level on down to ordinary homes, the kinder were greeted with love and sympathy. Though "Into the Arms of Strangers" lacks sufficient drama (considering the intense nature of its subject), it should be required viewing for Pat Buchanan and isolationists of his ilk and for those who believe that the U.S. should retreat into its own shell.
Rated PG. Running time: 110 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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