Happy children skate, play hopscotch, swim or walk in the park with their parents. We see teddies, paints, books and toys. All this is old black and white footage, but these are the timeless images of settled family life. The children are Jewish, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. During the 1930s, the cheery iconography of their childhood was to change overnight to maps, suitcases, trains and parents waving from railway platforms, trying to hide their tears. Taken to Britain to safety on the Kindertransport scheme, these children's lives were saved. But their childhood was over forever.
"I ceased to be a child when I boarded the train in Prague," says Eva Hayman, who was leaving Czechoslovakia with her sister. "My parents had two weeks before we left to give us the guidance they had hoped to spend all their lives giving." Thus the documentary, Into the Arms of Strangers, directed by Mark Jonathan Harris, begins. "I was the centre of the universe, I had an idyllic life," recalls Kurt Fuchel, from Vienna, whose father was a bank manager and whose granny lived around the corner. Kurt was sent to foster parents in Britain.
But the security of childhood was already being eclipsed at home. Ursula Rosenfeld, from Germany, recalls her eighth birthday party, which none of her classmates attended because it was the day Hitler came to power: "It was a terrible blow for a child, to be ostracised like that," she recalls. The expressions of these grey-haired interviewees, now in their 60s and 70s - the women in pearls, the men with weathered, pronounced features - show that they are intent on remembering. Their faces often have to fight back tears.
"I feared going to school," says Jack Hellmann, who attended school in Frankfurt. "I was threatened constantly, and one day some boys called me Jew bastard and threw me through a plate glass window." Robert Sugar, from Vienna, adds: "The bottom fell out of our world when we had to leave our apartment." Many Jewish families tried to get out, but Lore Segal recalls: "You had to have a sponsor, a visa, an exit permit. There was a time span within which they would expire. And then there was finding a country you could go to." Places as far afield as Argentina, Cuba and Shanghai were discussed.
They all have memories of Kristallnacht, November 9th, 1938: synagogues on fire, having to hide in cupboards, the windows broken and merchandise looted from all the Jewish shops. In Munich, Bertha Leverton's family was woken up at 2 a.m. by the Nazis and put under arrest. "We went to an assembly point with thousands of other Jews. They were beating up the rabbi. We were petrified."
Ursula's father was beaten to death in Buchenwald because he had tried to defend the old men in the camp. "He was always outspoken, and he complained that the old men shouldn't have their braces taken away from them, he said it was undignified," she recalls. "They offered us my father's ashes for money. We buried the ashes in the Jewish cemetery, but there was no way of really knowing if they were his."
The Kindertransport scheme, for which children under 17 were eligible, was hastily approved in Britain after Nicholas Winton returned from a tour of the Jewish refugee area in Prague. Soon 300 children a week were pouring into England: too numerous for immediate fostering. Many waited weeks in temporary accommodation, hoping they would be chosen by English parents.
In the US, a bill proposing to take Jewish children was not passed, for the bizarre reason that accepting children without their parents "was contrary to the laws of God".
Each child was allowed to take one suitcase, one piece of hand luggage and 10 Reichsmarks. Mothers lovingly embroidered their child's name on every stitch of clothing. "I was given a list of people's names whom I was told I had to save from Hitler," says Lore Segal, from Vienna. "I was 10 years old." Members of her family were intent to get out and were prepared to cluth at straws. She recalls that most of the trains left at night, and each child had a number. "All the parents promised to join their children in a couple of weeks," says Bertha Leverton. Norbert Wollheim, Kindertransport organiser in Berlin, recalls the grief of parents when he told them "this is your last goodbye": "I don't know how I had the courage. I suppose I had no idea that only a year and a half later the trains would be leaving in another direction to Hitler's slaughterhouses".
Lory Cahn's father couldn't bear parting with his little girl and snatched her out of the Kindertransport train before it moved off. She ended up in Auschwitz: "I weighed 58 lbs when I was liberated, at the age of 19. I wanted to be strong and make it until the end". She was one of the lucky ones. Almost 1,500,000 children died in the Holocaust.
Once safely across the border in the Netherlands, the children enjoyed hot cocoa and sang and cheered. Then they endured a rough crossing on the English Channel. "I have a vivid memory of how beautiful the sea looked," recalls Eva Hayman. "I felt a mixture of elation and fear."
The belief of these youngsters in England as a benign haven is illustrated in a particularly poignant episode when one boy was questioned by Customs Officers about the value of the violin he was carrying. To show that the instrument was for his own use, and to demonstrate his confidence in British hospitality, the boy played all three verses of God Save the King.
Lorraine Allard had been told that she was to treat her new foster mother just as she had her own mother. "But when I went to hug her goodnight, she pushed me away and said it was sissy." Kurt Fuchel, after frightening himself with one outburst of temper against his new foster brother, resolved to behave impeccably for fear of being sent away: "I tried to please them. I felt very dependent".
Leverton was sent to a working-class family in Coventry to work as their maid. "They took my clothes," she recalls. "They didn't like the fact I was better dressed than them." Later she managed to convince the family to take her younger sister also.
Jack Hellmann arrived with a group of schoolmates, but was very excited by the ease with which he began to make new friends. He recalls boasting in wonderment: "Someone who is not Jewish wants to play with me tomorrow!"
Letters were sent back and forth between the children and their parents, some of them heart-rending. A parent wrote: "If only I could see you, just for a tiny moment. I'm full of longing." A child wrote: "I can assure you that I always grit my teeth and smile."
As the situation worsened at home, the children made valiant efforts to rescue their families. Allard knocked on the doors of big houses until she found employment for her elderly parents as a cook and gardener. "But then the war broke out and I couldn't get them out in time. I cried, not for weeks or months, but for years." The Kindertransport ended, as did all correspondence except for 25-word postcards sent via the Red Cross. "I never dreamt I could be so lonely and go on living," says Eva Hayman.
The children had many different experiences. Many lost their parents in concentration camps. Others, such as Kurt Fuchel, were eventually reunited with their parents. But nine years of separation had taken their toll. Kurt had spent the crucial growing years between childhood and late teens with an English family, of whom he had grown fond. When he saw his parents again they were like strangers: "I felt love, I felt elation. But I couldn't look at them directly". His voice quivers with emotion. "But when you think about it, I was so lucky. I had my parents back, and I still had my foster parents too. Most Kindertransport children didn't have any."
Into the Arms of Strangers runs at the Irish Film Centre, Dublin, from October 5th to 11th
An extract from W.G. Sebald's new novel, Austerlitz, about a man who was a Kindertransport child, appears on Weekend 13. Review: Weekend 11