My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports (1996)

According to Hulu's offering, this documentary (from 1966) is "a Powerful account of an astonishing slice of Holocaust history, told with poignant intimacy by the daughter of a survivor. On... See full summary »

Director:

Melissa Hacker

Stars:

Eddie Better, Sonnie Better, Erika Estis

1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Eddie Better	...	Himself
Sonnie Better	...	Himself
Erika Estis	...	Herself
Kurt Fuchel	...	Himself
Kurt Goldberger	...	Himself
Franzi Groszmann	...	Herself
Ruth Morley	...	Herself
Michael Roemer	...	Himself
Lore Segal	...	Herself
Norbert Wollheim	...	Himself
Joanne Woodward	...	Narrator (voice)

Storyline

According to Hulu's offering, this documentary (from 1966) is "a Powerful account of an astonishing slice of Holocaust history, told with poignant intimacy by the daughter of a survivor. On the eve of WWII, Jewish children boarded trains taking them to refuge in London, many never to see their parents again.

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Plot Keywords:

kindertransport | world war two | jewish | claim in title | holocaust | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

January 1996 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

76 min

Color:

Black and White Color

Did You Know?

Connections

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

User Reviews

A film whose reticence speaks loudly

In the blasting force of the Holocaust film industry I had worried that Melissa Hacker's touching film might be lost. I had the pleasure of seeing the film in a university theatre and spending some time with its director, and I'm very happy to see it available on video, where its intimacy should do well. This is a family story--Hacker's own mother, who appears in the film, was one of the children transported out of Nazi Germany--and what is most satisfying about it is its close attention to individual lives. And those lives turn out to be deeply illuminating, not least because the stories retain their childlike confusion at the insanity of the adult world. The idea that children should leave the families they loved and take up with new families who didn't even speak German was always somewhat incomprehensible to the Kindertransport emigrants--properly so-- and through their own bewilderment and their permanently mixed feelings of relief, gratefulness, sorrow and guilt we catch some glimpse of the incomprehensibility of the Nazi persecution itself. Because Hacker's touch is so light the weight of the film's message is all the more bearable; and it loses none of its depth by her sensitive treatment.