Award-winning drama “The Windermere Children” is to get a rare showing on the big screen as part of special events to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
It tells the story of 300 young survivors of the Holocaust who came to the Lake District after liberation from concentration camps to begin new lives.
And in a unique “homecoming” it will be shown, for the first time ever, in the very cinema in Bowness-on-Windermere where the children were taken to watch movies back in 1945.
“The Windermere Children” explains how young Holocaust Survivors came to stay on the Calgarth Estate at Windermere in the summer of 1945.
It won the Prix Europa Award for Best Television 2020 at a ceremony in Berlin and has been broadcast worldwide since appearing in 2020.
The big screen “homecoming” event, at the Royalty Cinema in Bowness-on-Windermere, takes place on Thursday, January 26 at 7pm – the evening before Holocaust Memorial Day 2023.
A recorded interview with Harry Olmer, a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp and one of the central figures of The Windermere Children film, will also be shown.
Entry is free and all are welcome. It has been organised by The Lake District Holocaust Project.
Trevor Avery BEM, Director of the Lake District Holocaust Project, was an advisor on the film. He says:
“The big screen experience draws you into the movie, especially when you consider that you will be watching it in the very same cinema the Jewish children used to watch films when they were here in 1945, and only a short distance from where they stayed at the time.
“This is a wonderful homecoming for me and The Windermere Children. This very rare showing on a big screen is courtesy of Wall to Wall, BBC, Fremantle and Warner Bros and the Royalty Bowness.”
A short film called “One Night from Prague”, by award winning Windermere based film maker Thomas Gardner, will be shown before the screening. It includes footage of the surviving children and their families visiting the Royalty Cinema during a reunion in May 2022. There will also be a question-and-answer session with Trevor Avery.
Main photo: (Left) Harry Olmer, one of “The Windermere Children” meets architect Damiel Libeskind in Cumbria. (Right) Trevor Avery BEM, Director of Lake District Holocaust Project, giving a talk on the Calgarth Estate at Windermere
