This past Sunday evening, our local PBS station broadcast a movie called The Windermere Children. I found it to be extremely moving. It tells the based-on-real-life story of Jewish children refugees, survivors of Nazi concentration camps, who were brought to an estate in England immediately after the war to get reacclimated (or acclimated - some had had little or no previous life outside the barbed wire) to civil society and to hope desperately that the Red Cross can find their families. As a general rule, I'm not much of a weeper, but this one had me shedding a couple of tears.
As of now, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% rating, with an insufficient number of critics having weighed in so far to achieve a critical consensus. Critic reviews returned by searching Google for
"windermere children" are positive, too. If you are a Comcast cable subscriber (we are not - too scarred by previously being their customer), you may be able to view it via PBS On Demand. According to Google, it is also available on Amazon Prime for $5.99.
I can't remember the last time I've seen anything as good on PBS.
I'm sure this is a worthwhile show, but at some level, I feel that sad stories about the Holocaust distract us from Israel's inhumane and unfair policies toward indigenous non-Jewish populations and from the plight of other refugees around the world who are suffering now.
ReplyDeleteThe British have a lot to answer for in diddling around in this area in the early part of the 20th Century, and casting themselves as heroes does not excuse their culpability in making a mess in Palestine.
Sounds like it might be worth watching. I think we can access PBS On Demand. We seem to have been watching nothing but whodunits lately, time to check into something different.
ReplyDeleteNot denying that the British mishandled stuff, or that Israel is currently mishandling a lot of things. But if these children found a happy ending, that's a good thing. Plenty of children didn't.
We pay $60/year to our local PBS station. This modest amount entitles us to stream all the shows they have available at any given time. This includes on-demand for current news shows, as well as streaming their recent series. We do not have cable.
ReplyDeleteI have spent a lot of reading time during the last three years on WWII and the Holocaust. I have been trying to get inside the heads of people who called themselves "christian" and filled the pews every Sunday, even while Hitler was enacting the anti-Jewish laws, creating ghettos, taking over al the homes of the Jewish citizens and moving in their own govt and military people, stealing all of their money and valuable possessions, while the "christian" neighbors stood by and waited to have a chance to buy some of the lovely things they had seen in their Jewish neighbor's homes at a government sale in their towns. Eventually, the disabled, the frail elderly, the homosexuals and the gypsies were also disposed of by the regime, supported by "christians'.
There were individual heroes - nuns who took in Jewish children and taught them Catholic prayers so that when questioned by Nazi thugs they could respond properly. Priests who signed fake baptismal certificates. People who hid Jewish children and worked to get them out of the country, mostly to England. But most of the "christians" stood by and, in the early years, applauded the improved economy under Hitler.
So, I will watch this series, even though I also disapprove of how Israel treats the Palestinians.