Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport


Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport is a 2000 Warner Bros. documentary feature film about the remarkable British rescue operation, known as the Kindertransport, which saved the lives of over 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia by transporting them via train, boat, and plane to Great Britain. These children, or Kinder in German, were taken into foster homes and hostels in Britain, expecting eventually to be reunited with their parents. The majority of them never saw their families again. Written and directed by Mark Jonathan Harris, produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, narrated by Judi Dench, and made with the cooperation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, it utilized rare and extensive footage, photographs, and artifacts, and is told in the words of the child survivors, rescuers, parents, and foster parents.
The film was released on DVD and VHS on August 28, 2001 by Warner Home Video.

Interviewed subjects

The documentary features filmed interviews in which the children of the Kindertransport recall their feelings and experiences. These interview subjects include:
Alexander Gordon was also one of the refugees on, one of the most notorious events of British maritime history.

Reactions

An overwhelming majority of American film critics responded positively to Into the Arms of Strangers writing that it both intellectually and emotionally captures this chapter of history. The film went on to win the prestigious Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film had an extremely limited theatrical release and grossed $382,807 domestically.
In 2014, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertranspot was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation for all time in the National Film Registry.
Watching the film inspired W. G. Sebald to write his last novel Austerlitz, in which the protagonist undergoes a journey of discovering his own childhood deportation on the Kindertransport.