The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words

This program is broadcast on PBS.

Humans over the years have done lots of experimenting with non-human animals but experimenting with humans is generally forbidden. However at times the experiments just happen for unrelated reasons, giving us insights otherwise unavailable.

That is how I prefer to view this program, 300 orphan Jewish children, Holocaust survivors, are placed at an English estate near Lake Windermere, former site of a seaplane factory, where they grow back to normalcy in circumstances way foreign to their homeland. The results are very interesting and the presentation is well made. Anna Freud published a paper on 'An Experiment in Group Upbringing' in studying the group of six youngest children. What allows this documentary to rise above ordinary is seeing and hearing from several of the original 300 children, now in their late 70s to early 90s.

"The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words" tells the story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere. In the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust, this powerful documentary reveals a little-known story of 300 young orphaned Jewish refugees who began new lives in England's Lake District in the summer of 1945."

It's the documentary companion piece to the film "The Windermere Children". It's good to watch this documentary after watching the film. It shows the real story and it's nice to see the truth of the film. It's great to see Bela again although the five others are not shown. I do wish to see the compound in present day.