ENCINITAS, California — The BBC film Children of Wandermere is a heart- rending and at the same time heart-warming film of the incredible rescue mission of 300 children from ages 3 to 16 who survived the death camps of Germany in 1945.
The first group of youngsters was flown for eight hours seated on the floor of a converted RAF bomber. They only had the clothes on their backs and some meager possessions. Until the Red Cross provided clothes, all the children went around in their underwear.
These children had been battered, starved, treated like animals and some had witnessed parents and siblings slaughtered by Nazi guards, The Red Cross later provided what information they could find, but it was mostly tragic losses.
The plane landed in the small town of Crosby on Eden near Carlyle in the Lake District of northern England. The children were then taken to a place originally built to house employees of a former seaplane factory.
The youngsters had no idea where they were and were in complete shock. Could they believe they were really safe and free, or was this a ruse by the Nazis? One boy ran into the forest to escape. But no one stopped him as the core of the program established by the camp’s director, Psychiatrist Oscar Friedmann was to allow the youngsters complete freedom to move around and trust the staff.
After they had lived like animals in labor camps, it was touching to see their reactions as they entered their own rooms with real beds.
A rabbi and a few other staff members spoke Polish and could converse with the children and translate for the staff. (Subtitles were used here, of course)
Basic English was taught, but the essential aim of the four-month program. although too short, was to help the children find their places in a new world emotionally and physically. Having nourishing food, freedom to wander through the forest, swim in beautiful Windermere Lake, visit the local town and play soccer helped them rebuild their identity.
Of equal importance was bringing these children together in one place where they could be with children who’d been through what they’d been through, and could talk about it among themselves if they wanted to.
At the end of four months the very young children were taken in and raised by foster families. Training opportunities were arranged for the older teens. They all become distinguished citizens of England although memories of their previous lives haunted them for years after.
Leonard Montefiore, a wealthy Jewish philanthropist, made a generous contribution as did other members of the English Jewish community to fund a dramatization and documentary about the children.
The Children of Windermere script is based on a book by Arek Hersh, one of the boys in the original group of Windermere children. Simon Beck wrote the script and Michael Samuel directed the film. Arel Hersh’ s book, A Detail of History, was published in 1998 and provided the bases for two films with the same name. Both films can be seen on Netflix, or via PBS on line. The dramatization utilized young Polish actors, who did an outstanding job of portraying the war-shocked orphans. The second film is a follow up documentary interviewing several survivors from the Windermere camp project and is also worth viewing.
Hersh at 91 described in an interview how through most of his life he had tried to bury the horrible memories of surviving the Holocaust, “He did not talk about it to his three daughters, who today are grandmothers, nor did he talk about it to his second wife Jean. But in 1995, at the pace of only two lines a day, he wrote his story, and once the book was completed, he was able to discuss his experiences with others.
The Windermere program is not as well known as the Kindertransport initiative, which moved nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied territories to Britain between 1938 and 1939.
At that time, some British politicians, including former Prime Minister Lord Baldwin, argued that it was a humanitarian duty. “I have to ask you to come to the aid of the victims, not of any catastrophe in the natural world, not of an earthquake,” he said, “but of an explosion of man’s inhumanity to man.”
I began watching The Children of Wandemere late one night, but at midnight had to stop in the middle to catch some sleep. I could not wait to start it up next morning to see the ending.
It should be a must on your bucket list of films to see.
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Cantor Sheldon Foster Merel is cantor emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel and is a devotee of live theater and film. He may be contacted via sheldon.merel@sdjewishworld.com