"Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII"
Before the start of World War Two there were one and a half million Jewish children living throughout Europe. By the end of that conflict less than one in ten survived. Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Aviva Slesin tells the moving story of some of these survivors who were saved from certain death by non-Jews despite the deadly threat they faced from the Nazis in "Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII."
Aviva Slesin, who was one of the children who survived the war because of the kindness of strangers, makes a very personal document about a small subculture spawned by war. For the many millions of Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis the idea of keeping the family together at any cost proved to be catastrophic. But, some Jewish families saw the handwriting on the wall and went against their ingrained need for family unity. They took their beloved children and, trusting to humanity and to chance, placed them in the homes of Christians and other non-Jews.
"Secret Lives" is a straightforward, carefully crafted work that builds its stories in a logical manner. The lives of the survivors before the war is examined as we see the quiet, peaceful life that would soon be totally destroyed. When the war breaks out and it becomes obvious to those too few parents that the winds have changed, Slesin delves into the shock to a child of being torn from your family and dumped into the hands of strangers. We see, as a result, the various ways the children coped with the sudden, wrenching changes. She then examines their lives in hiding and the very different experience of each child. The war's end introduced a whole new set of life parameters for theses children and we see how they handle yet another life altering experience.
Slesin also gives ample attention to the surviving families of the rescuers as they talk about what it was like to have a strange child thrust into their lives, sensing the danger they were in but keeping quiet about it, too. After all, the Nazi-occupied countries they lived in had death laws for those even possessing the knowledge of a Jewish child in hiding. The many interviews span across Europe from Holland to France to Germany, Poland, Lithuania and the United States and are punctuated with personal photos and (not enough) archival footage from the time of the war.
Aviva Slesin has a vested interest, you find out, for making "Secret Lives." She is, as I said, one of the survivors that she is documenting and the film has the underlying story of her journey as Slesin returns to Lithuania, 53 years later, to thank the woman who raised her and kept her safe when she was only 9 months old. The film is remarkable for the number of people the dedicated filmmaker found to give testament to the story of these unknown survivors and their rescuers.
"Secret Lives" is short - about 75 minutes - and an interesting and more hopeful look at the Holocaust. It is scheduled for a short theatrical run but is better suited for the small screen. I give it a B-.
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