TV & Radio
January BBC Two
All the must-see/hear programmes
In 1945, the Government granted 1,000 children the right to enter the UK. These survivors of the Nazi death camps were assumed to be orphans. Of those who arrived, brought to the UK by the RAF, 300 were taken to the Calgarth Estate near Windermere in the Lake District, a place to recuperate in tranquil surroundings in their first few months in a new country. The children were deeply traumatised, spoke no English, and had few if any possessions.
The man responsible for overseeing their care was Oscar Friedmann, a psychoanalyst and social worker born in Germany, and himself a refugee from the Nazis. The task of working with so many traumatised children had never been attempted before, yet Friedmann and his team believed they could help the youngsters build new lives and become reintegrated into society.
The story of what happened next is the subject of 90-minute drama The
Windermere Children, part of programming across BBC networks to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. The film charts how the children, many of whom regarded their new home as close to paradise, formed lifelong bonds. Their recollections feature throughout the programme, both in interviews with the now elderly survivors and in the way that the script from Simon Block (writer of 2015 drama The Eichmann Show) draws on their testimony.
A strong cast sees Thomas Kretschmann portray Friedmann, Romola Garai play art therapist Marie Paneth and Tim McInnerny as the philanthropist Leonard Montefiore, who as a representative of the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF) went to war-ravaged Europe to see what could be done for Holocaust survivors.
Also watch out for Belsen: Our Story, a documentary about the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen that features new interviews with survivors together with footage of their liberation at the hands of the British Army.