Haven

An amazing story of 1,000 World War II refugees who survived and escaped Nazi Europe, were chosen by pure chance to sail to America for safe haven in an old military fort in upstate New York, and eventually were given the great opportunity of staying in this country for a new life. I'm the son of one of those families who sailed into New York Harbor, past the Statue of Liberty, on August 3, 1944. I love this movie!

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.

This movie is based on the book of the same name of a woman who worked for the Secretary of the Interior (Ickies) who claimed in the book "to not have met a Jew until he was 16" which could have added to the alienation felt by the nearly 1000 Jews and Christians brought to Oswego, New York in 1944. This movie appears like a soap box from which a very non -Jewish looking Richardson hears the evils of the Nazis during WWII screams at the past, not to real people in the State Department (who definitely knew the Nazis were up to something in the late 1930s/early 1940s). However the point of the book was to not show hate against many of the Americans in the story. The people of Oswego, New York in this movie are shown as communist and disease fearing people who are acting like, "why did this happen to us?". However, in the book they met with their new neighbors as best they could: throwing food/clothes over the fence which separated the two peoples. Many dramatic opportunities were passed up in the story, including the variety show, in which the refugees gave a show for the soldiers on the boat they shared passage.

Could have been much better, if they had stuck to what had happened and read the book about the real Ruth Gruber a truly amazing woman who is not done justice here.

i always knew that America carried anti-semitic views, but i never knew that it was very strong within our own government that Jewish refugees were not even allowed to marry. it's hard to say that this movie was syrupy or overdone considering it was based on a true story. funny how it worked it out well for Hollywood, it's a shame it wasn't taken to the big theaters and was just a TV movie. nonetheless, it was an excellent film that revealed the war at home, the fight for refugees, and America's own hidden agenda. everyone knows now that many nations knew about Hitler's plans and ignored it, but this movie shows how much more we hid. i hope that everyone gets to see this movie for not only was the plot great, but that acting was well done. all the actors contributed very well. it surprised me much that i never heard about refugee camps during WWII, not even in my history class.

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.