The Windermere Children

One summer’s night in 1945, 300 children are in transit from Prague to the Lake District, a remote and picturesque corner of the English countryside. They are child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust that has all but wiped out Europe’s Jews – and for these particular children, their entire families too. They are some of the 1000 children the British government has granted refuge to, giving them a place where they can rehabilitate and grow strong after the devastation of the war. They carry only the clothes they wear and a few meagre possessions, along with the physical and psychological scars of all they have suffered. They do not know what awaits them in Britain and naturally they are fearful: they don’t speak English, and having spent many years living in death camps, have missed out on a proper education. But the children are also excited, for the war is over, and there is always hope that the future will be kinder to them than the past. (Spirit Entertainment)