Movies | February 20, 2009 | 8 comments

The Train to Toyland: The Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, Treblinka and Auschwitz

source: http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-train-to-toyland-the-warsaw-jewish-ghetto-tr...

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“Toyland” is the 2009 Academy Awards Winner for the Best Live Action Short Film. Set in 1942 Germany, this absorbing 14-minute short film reflects back to harrowing memories about a prelude to the Holocaust, in particular the 1938 Nazi Kristallnacht (The Night of Shattered Crystal) in Germany. “Toyland” tells the powerful story of a German mother in those early days of WWII whose son is best friends with a Jewish boy living next door. When the mother learns that the neighboring Jewish family is scheduled to be picked up and taken away by the Nazi’s on the very next day, she attempts to placate her own son’s curiosity about their surprise trip by telling him that his friend is merely making a vacation visit to “Toyland” in Switzerland.

What begins as the mother’s seemingly innocent attempt to protect her son from an awareness of the Nazi’s disturbingly evil barbarian brutalities unexpectedly leads him to become obsessed with going to “Toyland” along with the Jewish family and his best friend. The film’s story unfolds in a rare time-sequence series of flashback and flashforward rotations. It is a truly unusual dialectical cinematographic rendering of interactive human memory, which reaches its startling conclusion in an incredibly subtle twist of bittersweet fate.

Unpacking the emotional complexities of “Toyland” unveiled recollections about the uncommonly courageous acts of Janusz Korczak, which are seldom mentioned today. However, this important short film impresses us with an irresistible message about the importance of “remembering to remember” the life of Janusz Korczak. On August 6nd, 1942, reflecting his lifelong compassionate devotion to both children and the rights of children, Korczak adamantly refused offers for his own safety and with defiant dignity he led the orphans under his care in the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto to the trains that ultimately would take them all to death at the Treblinka Death Camp.

This detailed article includes colorful photographs from the short-film “Toyland” and a number of vintage photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Treblinka Death Camp and Auschwitz. In addition, it presents a slideshow of memorable vintage photographs , as well as the widely acclaimed, deeply moving Academy Award Winner, “Toyland.”
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8 comments // The Train to Toyland: The Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, Treblinka and Auschwitz

  • disembedded
  • skycaptain
    • +1
      skycaptain  

    • Magnificent!! I saw this film for the first time today. In 14 minutes it summed up the Holocaust and the evil and goodness of the human heart. A celebration of life and lasting truths. I was moved deeply by this film. You must see it!!

    • 2 years ago
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  • dfillingham
    • +1
      dfillingham  

    • On watching the short, I was struck by the niceness of the film. There is reality beyond the camera where brutality is rampant, and there is the fantasy of the movie where goodness responds to evil in unique ways.

      Perhaps it is the limitation of entertainment to show reality. But then again, there are some movies which changed my life, so it is not so simple.

      I will post on my site some more parallel thoughts.

      Thanks for stimulating me so much.

    • 3 years ago
  • dfillingham
    • +1
      dfillingham  

    • Thanks dis. Janus Korczak is a family hero. He was an educator, ran an orphanage for kids in Warsaw that was creative and enabling. They had their own newspaper written by the kids, they had as good a life as he and others could make for them.

      It is somehwat controversial his decision to march them to the trains and from the cattlecars to the camps. But his love of the kids has never been doubted.

      This movie I have not seen, and I will review it later.

      Thanks for remembering Janus Korczak.

    • 3 years ago
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  • lj111
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