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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
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50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus
Debuting tonight on HBO, and playing throughout April, “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus” tells the story of Eleanor and Gilbert Kraus, a Jewish couple, with two children, from Philadelphia, who managed to go to Nazi-occupied Vienna and Berlin and rescue fifty Jewish children, bringing them to the United States. The rescue occurred in the Spring of 1939.
“50 Children” was written, produced, and directed by accomplished journalist Steven Pressman. Alan Alda provides narration, and Mamie Gummer reads from Eleanor Kraus’s memoir. Together they tell the story – along with interviews of several of the surviving children. The archival footage and still photographs provide the ever-haunting images.
“50 Children” is Pressman’s first film, and it is – like so many documentary films about the Holocaust – as inspiring as it is disturbing. The fifty children rescued by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus were the largest known group allowed into the United States. One and a-half million children perished in the Holocaust.