Haven - Il rifugio

I find that Haven is extremely engrossing, inspiring enough for me to invite a number of people to watch its four hour length and to wake up thinking about it months after seeing it for the first time. It is not mawkish. It is about a harsh reality and it is about history and it is also about telling us about society in the time of WWII. It might not be comfortable for some of us to accept the reality of rejection, of discrimination, of the Holocaust and of the genuine responsibility of governments of the world who looked away from Nazism and its genocidal

maniacs. The anti-American slant of at least one of the reviews smacks of a

parochial nationalism that hides the historical truth that Canada ALSO was

guilty of looking away from victims of the Holocaust. Had the U.S. president Roosevelt lifted one political finger things could have been a lot better for them. Hitler took advantage of the fact that no one would take Jews into their borders before and during the war to carry out his demoniacal plans and no one with

political power tried to stop it It nor did the Allies even bother to bomb the gas chambers nor the railroads going to the concentration camps. It took the

courage and moral fibre of the little man from Missouri, Harry S. Truman , and little people like Ruth Gruber to make their mark. This film makes this

abundantly clear. This might not be a popular position but I can assure the

readers, that in my experience, he and she are held in the highest regard and FDR is now considered a moral failure amongst survivors. The film points this out along with many allusions to the prejudice of the State Department against even these poor victims of the Holocaust. If facts and well acted theatre can interact then this film does it all.

This story was just amazing. It touches you and helps you realize things about the War that would have never thought. How people suffered and how one woman wanted to help them. Natasha Richardson and Tamara Gorski are woman who I have seen in movies before and loved. They both did an awesome job in this movie as did everyone else. If you get the chance, take a look. I thought at first this would be a boring story I would have no intrest in. I was wrong. It's amazing.

You should also read the book. This was a movie based on a book and not a documentary. There is such an anti-American slant to this movie that it makes this more propaganda, as others above have said. It seems to portray both the American people and the American government as almost as anti-Semitic as Nazi Germany was. That is overly simplistic. While the State Department was very unfriendly to the Jews, Interior was not. While the US government was not particularly welcoming, the American people were. Mrs. Gruber, who didn't have a German boyfriend in the book, said that the events in this movie didn't happen that way. The refugees were selected by diversity, not age or pregnancy status. In fact, one child was born on the truck on the way to the ship. The no fraternizing command on the ship was just temporary, to avoid trouble. The variety show they put on for the troops was not in the movie. They didn't rush the mess hall but the quantity of food was so enormous, they didn't understand until they were told that was the way they feed the Army. During the submarine scene, no one freaked out and no babies were born. There was no trouble between the troops and refugees and there was no Seig Heil scene. This movie IS an insult to the people of Oswego who welcomed these refugees with open arms. When they arrived by train, it was 7:30 AM and they were greeted with milk and cookies handed to them on the train. Thus the Treblinka-like spot-lights were not there, although there was a fence. These were not barracks but apartments the Army built for them. They were not all Jews and they had Christian services at the post chapel and they built a small synagogue. They had boy scouts, girls scouts, a wedding, celebrated Christmas, had a bris (ritual circumcism), and had a bar mitzvah. Although the anti-Semitism of the State Dept is legendary, just as it was true that more German POWs were brought here than refugees, it is also true that Eleanor Roosevelt and Elinor Morganthau visited the camp and Mrs. Roosevelt was responsible for their being able to get an education. Why Roosevelt did so little has inspired books on the subject. Perhaps it was his just punishment not to be able to live to see the end of the war. But he appointed people with sensitivity to prejudice, including Harold Ickes, who had been the chairman of the Chicago branch of the NAACP, to high government positions and kept the country united. No president either before or after has been able to do that. But back to the movie, mention should have been made of the enormous contributions to America in science, the arts and medicine by these refugees. One final dig at the State Dept - State remained intransigent to the very end, not allowing the refugees to apply for citizenship in America. Mrs. Gruber did not have to convince President Truman nor did she meet with him. It was Gruber's and Ickes letters to the media that changed government policy. It took months to get around this, but they eventually found a solution to our arcane immigration rules by putting the refugees on a bus and crossing the Rainbow Bridge into Canada, and then they were immediately allowed back into America permanently. Seventy communities across the country then offered to resettle them. Does this sound like all of America was anti-Semitic? I think not. Fort Ontario in Oswego is now a museum. If you enjoyed this movie at all, and I did, you should do yourself a favor and read the book, which is readily and inexpensively available at Amazon.com.

The similarity of roles played by Liam Neeson in "Schindler's List" and Natasha Richardson in "Haven" is apparent (one hero, the other heroine) saving Jewish lives. "Haven" draws the viewer in by focusing on America's neglect for rescuing Jewish families from Hitler during WW2. This movie tells an equally powerful story of the lives of Jewish families that needed restoration during/after the holocaust. This movie reminds us what the word holocaust actually means, both for those lives taken and for those lives left behind. Well told story, with great supporting acting from Hal Holbrook, Anne Bancroft, etc.

This is the story of a woman of great courage and compassion. The acting was excellent. I, however, felt clubbed to death by every anti-Jewish cliche known. I lived in the mid-west during the time of this movie's setting and had several Jewish friends. I rarely ever saw the unkind responses shown in this movie. In fact the only times that I ever heard negative comments about Jews were in a few adults who were prejudiced about equally between all the groups different than their own. In this regard, the movie is little different than many "black" movies that go to extremes to show victimizing of their class.