TV Review The Windermere Children

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2020 – BBC – Spoiler alerts A very moving drama based on real events, made specially to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. (27th January). After the liberation of Auschwitz a group of three hundred Polish children were flown to the British Lake District to an experimental rehabilitation camp close to Lake Windermere to help them recover from their unimaginable trauma and find new confidence in life. They had just four months to do it. The camp initially frightens the children. The huts they use for dormitories, built initially to house workers at a nearby secret flying boat factory, look chillingly like the huts at Auschwitz. However, the children soon learn that they have been given a great deal of freedom and trust. One boy tries to escape, only to be spotted by one of the councillors, who instead of threatening any kind of violence simply gives the boy a cheery wave and lets him run off to explore the lakeside woods. Later local village boys try bullying the refugees with Nazi salutes. A councillor sees it and walk over to them, handling the conflict with jaw-dropping calm. He shows the boys how to do the Hitler Salute correctly and while they maintain it, he casually describes how the children they are teasing saw men doing that salute while their families were casually slaughtered before their eyes. The bullies are clearly left humiliated and guilty for the experience. The councillors teach the children English, allow them free expression art opportunities, offering no criticism of the art. At first the children draw guns, barbed wire, and images of death, but gradually start creating landscapes and work of more beauty. One councillor organizes a football team, planning a friendly match against local players, but his use of whistles and aggressive team commands frightens the boys until they all learn to compromise and work together better. There are still some sad moments. The Red Cross deliver news of whether the children’s family members survived – all of them have lost their families. One boy however, not hearing his older brother’s name mentioned maintains faith that his brother will come to the camp to find him. During the football match the brother does indeed turn up. The film’s closing moment reduced me to tears. Close to leaving the camp, the smiling children run to the lakeshore for one last look at the beautiful landscape that inspired Wordsworth’s verse. One by one the children are faded out until only five or six remain, except they are not children any more but adults, the real men who experienced the camp recovery programme. They are smiling, happy, always in touch with one another. They have truly recaptured the life the Nazis stole from them and so many others. An important film on a forgotten aspect of the concentration camp story, the rediscovery of hope, life and freedom. Arthur Chappell