Secret Lives - Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
by Aviva Slesin
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DVD details
Director: Aviva SlesinCinematographer: Anthony Forma
Cinematographer: Itamar Hadar
Producer: Aviva Slesin
Editor: Ken Eluto
Producer: Ann Rubenstein Tisch
Producer: Toby Appleton Perl
Writer: Toby Appleton Perl
Producer: Tony Appleton Perl
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Unknown; English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-07-20
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
DVD Reviews of Secret Lives - Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
DVD Review: The courage to care
Summary: 5 Stars
Although the vast majority of people living under Nazi-occupied Europe were either active collaborators or standing by silently and letting these things happen instead of protesting, a small group did have the courage to care and to make a stand. These were ordinary people who did extraordinary things, who didn't think of themselves as heroes but rather as people who just did what any humane compassionate human being would have done under such circumstances. Though some rescuers took children in with ulterior motives (money, converting them, wanting a child to be a laborer or servant, being abusive), most of them were like the people profiled in this film and did it because to do anything else would have been inconceivable.
The documentary focuses on hidden children in Holland, Poland, Belgium, and France, and gives us the perspectives of the hidden children (now elderly), their rescuers, and the children of the rescuers. Though some children, such as Fred, had to be literally hidden, there were other children, such as Moana and Irène (Rachel), who lived in the open as the pretended children or guests of their host families. Many families grew extremely attached to their foster children, and the feeling was usually very mutual. In some cases, such as with Erica and Alice, who were two weeks old and three years old, respectively, when they were taken into protective houses, these were their real parents, the only parents they could remember, the only parents they had ever really known. By the end of the war, they were usually considered as real members of the family, and it was always sad when they had to be taken back to their surviving relatives or into orphanages or DP camps. It does make sense, wanting them to be returned to their own people (even if they were being placed with surviving relatives who weren't their parents and who didn't know them that well) after so many Jewish children had already been murdered and so many families had been inalterably split up, but it also seems unfair that they should have to leave the only home they'd ever known and have to start life all over again, oftentimes in less than ideal circumstances. It wasn't often that a family were granted the right to keep and legally adopt their children, as happened with Irène/Rachel. Although it wasn't always so wonderful with the rescuing families; Hetty, one of Moana's foster sisters, remains rather bitter and upset about how her childhood was so fraught with secrecy and lies, feeling her mother cared more about the children she rescued than about her own daughters, even though she also loved Moana like a sister. Though such an attitude does seem rather surprising, to say the least, given what she surely must have found out in the decades since about the Shoah, it must have been a big burden for a child to have to bear, having to sneak and lie and live with the eternal fear of getting caught and punished. In many cases, the children didn't see their rescuing families after the liberation for decades, either because they lost touch after being placed with relatives or in orphanages, lived too far apart, or couldn't just casually write to or visit people stuck behind the Iron Curtain. The footage of some of the reunions is very emotional and powerful. In addition to the rescuers, one also can't help but admire the heroism of the birth parents. Even for those relative few who knew that the Nazis were lying to them about what was going to happen to them, it was still very very very hard to make the decision to separate from one's child, sometimes forever, and give him or her over to strangers.
As of the beginning of 2007, 21,758 people have been honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. (All of the people who participated in the rescue of Danish Jewry requested that they be listed as a single group and not individually.) Even considering those who haven't yet been nominated and those who will probably never be known, that's still a drop in the bucket considering how many people lived in Europe at the time. And yet this small minority of people had the courage to make a difference, to save the lives of children they didn't know, to just be good people and to do the right thing. And not only do these now-grown children owe their lives to these people who risked their lives to do the moral thing, but so do their children, grandchildren, and all of the generations in their line yet to be. As the oft-quoted line from the Talmud says, "Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though s/he had destroyed the world entire; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though s/he had saved the world entire."
Description of Secret Lives - Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII
Included in the DVD are director's notes. Before the Second World War, more than 1.5 million Jewish children were living in Europe. By the end of the Holocaust, less than one in ten had survived. Secret Lives tells the emotional stories of a small number of those who were saved by non-Jews in extraordinary acts of bravery and kindness. These men and women of uncommon decency did everything from bringing Jewish children into their families to securing hiding places in closets, attics, or hastily dug bunkers. Directed by Academy AwardŽ winner and former hidden child Aviva Slesin, this captivating documentary reveals what happened between the children and their rescuers and shows how this experience forever changed their lives.Bestsellers in DVD
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