In 1945, the British government made an agreement to give refuge to 1000 child survivors of the Holocaust. Of these children, around 300 were brought to the Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere. In the opening sequence of the BBC film The Windermere Children (2020), one young boy steps forward, raising his concerns over being brought to England under the wrong name. From the onset, the film poses one of the most crucial questions regarding post-liberation and the aftermath of the Holocaust: when someone's identity and sense of humanity has been so eroded, to the point where they no longer have ownership over their own name, how do they even begin to rebuild?
The scene where the children arrive at Calgarth Estate
Photograph taken by Helen Sloan, The Windemere Children was a co-production between ZDF and the BBC, and Northern Ireland Screen and between Wall to Wall and Warner Bros Germany.
Part of what made watching The Windermere Children so heart-breaking for me is seeing the way in which the children bring the traumas of the Holocaust with them. In many ways the scenes at Windermere remind the children of their time in the concentration camps. From their fear of removing clothes and personal belongings, to apprehension at staying in accommodation resembling the barracks they were forced to inhabit. The children immediately recognise these things as reminiscent of the camps, and so their feelings of trauma resurface. The younger children at Windermere become inseparable, their bonds with each other unbreakable.
Photograph of the main actors from the film.
Photograph taken by Helen Sloan, The Windemere Children was a co-production between ZDF and the BBC, and Northern Ireland Screen and between Wall to Wall and Warner Bros Germany.
The film uses montages to emphasise their struggle to adjust to normal life, and at other times to demonstrate how far they have come. One particularly poignant montage depicts many of the children having nightmares. One child has a recurring dream of his mother, imagining that she will come back to him despite knowing that this is unlikely. Art classes are also presented in montages, as the children are encouraged by an art teacher staying at Windermere to use art to express their thoughts and feelings about what they have been through. The teacher expresses her sadness at the paintings produced by the children, relaying that where children who survived the Blitz still painted pictures of blue skies and sunny days, these child survivors painted dark and colourless scenes, depicting their loss of family members and identity, and their struggle to access happy memories. Her words about the nature of the paintings were particularly moving: "how can you analyse these paintings? How can you ignore the suffering on every page?"
Watching the film, I found it hard to imagine how anyone could fail to welcome such brave and resilient child survivors of the Holocaust to England, but many characters featured in the story were not so willing to accommodate the children. A lady walking her dog through the woods makes derogatory comments about the nationalities of the young children, hostile to the idea of 'her' country welcoming them, and a group of British teenagers belittle and intimidate the children when out in the local village, shouting, laughing and performing the Nazi salute. Although these are individual examples, they are indicative of a wider attitude of hostility at the time, reflecting real-life concerns about Britain giving refuge to Holocaust survivors. The film exhibits a journey, as the English teenagers eventually visit to play a friendly game of football with the children, in order to foster relationships with the local community. In actual fact, it would take many years for testimonies of the Holocaust survivors to be taken seriously and treated with the respect they deserve.
The survivors featured with their actor counterparts.
Photograph taken by Helen Sloan, The Windemere Children was a co-production between ZDF and the BBC, and Northern Ireland Screen and between Wall to Wall and Warner Bros Germany.
Perhaps the most powerful part of The Windermere Children was its ending, in which the scene transitions from the young children standing at the edge of the lake, to the same survivors returning to this place, many years later. This flash-forward, contrasting the survivors with their younger selves, demonstrates the incredible nature of their lives. For example, Sir Ben Helfgott, who first came to Windermere as a child and displayed a particular talent for sports, later went on to become the British weightlifting champion at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic games. These survivors felt able to share their experiences with each other and took comfort from the bonds they had made so strongly during their stay at Windermere. The Windermere Children tells the story of how these young children, raised and conditioned to live in constant fear, were able to recapture a sense of themselves as individual and valued human beings, providing them with the strength to carry on after experiencing such darkness.
To watch the preview and purchase the film, click here