User reviews

"Into the Arms of Strangers", directed by Mark Jonathan Harris, is a loving account of what parents resort to do in order to save their children from a tragedy that was looming over Europe. Having missed this film when it was first released, we caught up with it in the DVD format that has been lovingly transferred to that medium.

The story of the "Kindertransport" is recounted by some of the children that participated in it. We watch them as they are today, and through pictures, and sometimes on those old newsreels and films where they are captured as children in Germany, and the countries where the prosecution of Jews took an ugly turn.

Our heart goes to some of these older people that speak with such dignity in spite of what was done to them and their families. It's a tribute to the people who tell us what happened to them in the way they express their experiences without venom, or malice. After all, these persons showcased in the documentary are all survivors, something that thousands other Jewish children didn't have the same fate.

One can only imagine what these individuals went through at such an early life, many without being able to speak English, or made themselves understood in the households that received them. Imagine a child separated from loving parents having to deal with a world gone mad. It speaks volumes the people that tells us their stories turned out to be the way they did!

Dame Judy Dench's narration works well in the context of the material being shown. Mark Jonathan Harris has made a valuable contribution to show the whole world how a mad man changed these children's lives, and their parents' forever.

I watched this movie the other night and found it most moving. I think it should be widely shown as very few people know of the Kindertransport. The documentary is well done and tells a wonderful story of survival. It was such a pity that no other country, other than England, helped to save these children. I highly recommend everyone to see it, as it is a part of our history.

The Testament of holocaust survivors is always worth hearing, lest we forget the depths to which humanity proved it was capable of sinking. In fact, the scale of the tragedy is almost incomprehensible to a privileged modern mind, hence the appeal of stories like 'Schindler's List', which focus on a few who were luckier than most: they give us an insight into the horror, without totally disconnecting from our own, more fortunate, experience. 'Into the Arms of Strangers' likewise tells a more human story than the bleakest truths, namely that of Jewish children taken in by Britain before the war. It's not a bad film, and yet to me it was not the most powerful account of the holocaust I've seen in spite of its human scale. Perhaps this is because the worst fate suffered by the rescued - the death of the families they left behind - was a burden gradually assumed, not directly witnessed, and the survivor's stories are thus that little bit more polished and analytical than in the most compelling documentary - whereas perceptions of events are static (and thus retain their quality of immediacy), our interpretations of our feelings are influenced by what happens afterwards, and even our own stories become slightly second-hand over time. Or perhaps this impression is merely created by the film-makers' slightly heavy-handed use of background music and images. In spite of the above, this is still a highly poignant and important film. We who live today should count, and guard, our blessings.

This film continues to haunt me. With such delicacy, honesty, and poignancy, the great tragic horror of the holocaust is brought home to us on a human scale from a child's vantage point. Each unique story is told with such quiet strength and dignity. It is not only what is said, but what is not said, that is so moving. It would have been so easy to over-sentimentalize or shock, yet this film navigates through the emotional landscape with compassion and sensitivity. The voices are wise, direct and articulate on the surface, but just below, there are complex layers of remembrance, guilt, shame, grief, rage, fear, loss, despair, sadness, faith, relief and hope.

The interweaving of the past and present, black and white and colour, child and adult, is crafted with great skill. The musical score is a perfect counterpoint to the unfolding drama. There is not one false note, not one. Everything is presented with a remarkable aesthetic and thoughtfulness.

No other holocaust documentary has had a greater impact on me. As a grownup 'child' and now as a mother, I will think about this film for a very long time to come.

After coming home from a day "out on the town" and then sitting down to watch this program on PBS by accident while channel-surfing was an interesting experience. The documentary so vividly told the stories of the experience of the children who where part of the the Kindertransport. What did it mean for them to be separated from their parents? What was it like for the parents who sent them away? How did the children cope with being in a strange land with strangers? How did some children deal with their parents' demise? How did some children deal with being reunited with their parents after the war? The movie was very well-done and very moving. I would definitely recommend owning this movie. Well-deserved Oscar win.

This is a film that must be seen by your entire family. True, it's very disturbing, but it's one of the best films ever made about the horrors of war. Beautifully made, touching and moving, this is just a marvel. It should be shown every year on national television, to make sure that people never forget. Technically a marvel, there is not one thing wrong with this film, other than the fact that people haven't seen it.

Along 1938 and 1939, the United Kingdom welcomed 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia through the Kindertransport program. Most of the other countries, including the United States of America, refused to accept these children. With the beginning of the World War II, this relocation was interrupted. "Into the Arms of Strangers" is a documentary, based on the remembrances and touching testimony of some survivors discussing their reality in their new homes or foster houses, their adaptation problem far from their parents, families and birth country and language and illustrated by photos and footage from that sad period. In the end, the viewer is not sure whether these children were lucky, or whether it might be better for them stay with their families and face the Holocaust together, due to their serious childhood trauma. Inclusive some of them did not speak the original language anymore, and needed an adaptation period to meet their parents again in the end of the war. As mentioned by another user, "this film is at once a testament to man's inhumanity". Unfortunately, the saddest thing to say is that more than fifty years later, we see Bosnian, Africans, Palestines, Iraquians etc. children being separated from their families due to the intolerance of the mankind. I can never forget the image of that Iraquian orphan without both arms on TV. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Nos Braços de Estranhos" ("Into the Arms of Strangers")

This film clearly demonstrates how ashamed this country should be in regard to some of it's actions during WW2, and how evil the people in power in government could be. In some ways, no better than the Nazi's. We had the clear chance to save 10's of thousands of children's lives, yet we denied safety to the most innocent of victims of Hitler. And all because of a 'moral majority' that said it wasn't right to separate children from their parents. The same 'moral majority' that controls this country today. In fact, I believe if someone asked us to save the lives of children in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, we would probably again refuse. The real reason being because these are people with different religious beliefs. And these people have the audacity to call themselves 'Christians'. These are the same type of 'Christians' as those who formed the Spanish Inquisition. Who have founded their religion on hatred of anyone different or simply anyone who has a different idea than they do. It's truly ironic that Washington has a Holocaust museum when it's clear that the government (who knew exactly what Hitler was doing to the Jews long before the common people did) supported Hitler's genocide by it's silence on the matter, just as the Catholic church did. But in the case of the Catholic church it was no surprise, because it has always been a representative of hatred toward all Jews, Muslims, and anyone who isn't 'Christian'. And by the way, I'm not Jewish, I'm not anything, just someone who hates intolerance and cruelty of any kind.

A documentary about the Kindertransport, which sent many Jewish children in Central Europe to safety in Britain. The film is constructed from interesting and rare film footage and newsreels, German lullabies and folk songs, still photos,letters and drawings, representative objects, but, most importantly the recollections of many Kindertransport children, full of detail and emotion. In a certain part of the film ,lines from letters from the children to their parents are read and one of the letters which is read is that of my grandmother, a child on the Kindertransport herself. To me this film was a personally invigorating, touching, informative and sad experience . Recommended when it opens ( I saw it at the Warners screening room in N.Y before it opened because of my connection).

Watching "Into the Arms of Strangers" was truly a profound experience for me. I am still struggling to put into words all the feelings it evoked in me.

This is the harrowing, compelling true story of Jewish children living in Hitler's Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia who were sent to live in England without their parents. It is told by the children who are now in their sixties and seventies, and it is accompanied by wartime newsreels from both England and Germany. The German footage is especially scary, because it looks much like the English footage, except the wholesome, smiling, patriotic citizens on display are all giving the Nazi salute.

It is hard to imagine being a young child and being taken away not just from your parents, but from your country, your language, and your culture. That really tore me up.

Anyone who sees this movie and doesn't cry is not a human being, but a thing of stone. 10 out of 10.

At a time when the progress of human civilization seemed to have come to an end, when the Dark Side was overwhelming the light, kindness and generosity could still be found. This extraordinary film is history as it should be: from the innermost thoughts and memories of the participants. This is a film that challenges every viewer - not because it preaches, but because it shows us at our worst and at our best. This is a film that you will never forget.

Very moving and interesting documentary about the children who left continental Europe to escape the Nazis. Via letters,archive film and interviews you hear the story of the European Jews before,during and after their persecution by the Nazis. For anyone who says "why didn't they leave before the Holocaust" should watch this to see how difficult it actually was to escape the Nazis even before WW2

This effort will not be for everyone. But if you have a desire in life to see right prevail, to see what is good, and if you live a life of love, then you will cherish this movie. I got this movie from the local library on a lark, and immediately following the end, I went on line and ordered it. It is very well done. The producers and directors here did a perfect job. If you are looking for sex and violence, this is not for you. But if you want to learn and be truly enriched in your life, then this offering is just the ticket. I am not Jewish but after watching this I feel as if I had been born Jewish. This movie has filled a space in my heart I was not aware of. I Cr 13;8a

During that relatively small window of time, prior to the beginning of Hitler's conquest of Europe, when exportation rather than extermination was still the prudent solution to the "Jewish Problem", a rescue plan called the Kindertransport was begun which provided for the relocation of Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia into Great Britain. INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS is a documentary that examines the Kindertransport program through the eyes of the participants. No broad social commentary here, just remembrances of parents that had to send their kids away to a foreign land and into the arms of strangers so that they might survive the Nazi barbarians. The difficulty of having to provide a whole life's worth of instruction to children just before those devastating last goodbyes. A little girl wondering why, just after Hitler annexed Austria, none of her long-time Austrian friends showed up for her eighth birthday party. Parents desperately trying to keep the harsh reality of Nazi occupation from the innocent little people oblivious to the evil of man. And once the children were safe in Britain, their desperate attempts to get sponsors for parents left behind and for those lucky enough to be re-united with family after the war, having to say goodbye once again, only this time to broken hearted foster parents. This documentary is made more effective by snap-shots of the children, archival footage of Nazi Germany during the late 1930's ( a veritable sewer of anti-Jewish destruction and propaganda), and in this context, the painfully frightening sound effects of broken glass, trains and the voices of children singing in German, which seem strangely perverted; an unfortunate consequence which Germans should never forgive the Nazi's.

Every one needs to see this film, particularly those who see refugee as a dirty word, or think refugees are a burden, that someone else should deal with. Because that is exactly what was happening before and during the second world war and, as this film shows, only very few Jewish children were saved from the holocaust, compared to the number that were slaughtered by the Nazis.

At the time of writing, numerous refugees are being created in Ukraine, Yemen and numerous other places. Fortunately, governments more sympathetic to refugees have recently taken power in the USA and Australia. But when you hear politicians trying to score votes by talking tough on refugees, take a look at this film and the real human cost and suffering that lies behind that.

"Into the Arms of Strangers" (2000): This is a documentary about parents who try to get their children OUT of the reach of Nazis (focusing on the "Kindertransport" system). Once in awhile a documentary comes along that is SO full of information you did not have, SO mesmerizing, and SO important to your understanding of the World, it is a must-see - for EVERYONE. Can you imagine what it is to send your children away…to…somewhere, not knowing what will become of them, and wondering if you shall EVER see one another again? Can you imagine being a young child, and as you're being put on a train for the escape, you scream to your parents (who are not going with you) that you must be adopted and they never did love you? Can you imagine being the child whose father, out of pure, illogical, last-second panic LOVE, pulled you back out of the moving train through the window, nearly killing you from the fall, and whose fates would then send you both to concentration camps? How would YOU and YOUR father DEAL with this, if you both "survived"? It uses excellent archival film (appears restored), beautiful scoring, artful editing, and lots of interviews (with surviving children and a few of their "foster parents"), make this an incredibly moving, horrific, inspiring experience. Really, you NEED to see "Into the Arms of Strangers".

A profoundly moving documentary of the evacuation of 10,000 children, predominantly Jewish, from Europe on the eve of the outbreak of WWII. The children were evacuated from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and other areas already under Nazi domination and transported to England, that most unlikely of havens. Most of these children lost their entire families in the Holocaust. A few were reunited with their parents after the war. All suffered profound dislocation; yet, those who are interviewed here clearly prevailed. This film is at once a testament to man's inhumanity and to his/her indomitable spirit.

Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-winning documentary takes a look at the railroad system that was used in WWII to try and get as many Jewish children as possible out of Germany. The railroad, known as the Kindertransport, ended up saving over 10,000 children and through interviews with those who used it and photos we hear about the history of the system and how it worked. Overall this is a pretty solid documentary for those interesting in the subject matter. If you're not overly interested in the subject then more than likely it's going to be a struggle to make through the entire two hour film. I think the best thing the film has going for it are some of the interviews that are full of detail and really make you understand what it was like being taken away from your family, thrown on a train and taken to either a foster family or a camp where you'd basically wait for someone to come an adopt you. Of course, the entire story isn't a happy one and as the war drug on the lives of even the "safe" children were still at risk. We hear about the political decision of England to allow the kids in and why the American government said no and refused to help in such a plan. I do think the film falls short of being great due to a rather slow pace and for the life of me I couldn't understand why I wasn't more moved by the stories. There was just something missing that kept me from fully connecting with the people involved.