The film
After Anschluss in the summer of 1938, twenty-one Jewish children came from Vienna to Oslo for summer camp. When the parents were offered to let the kids stay, half of them accepted. Those children who returned, perished in the concentration camps. Child psychologist and communist Nina Hasvold undertook to manage a Jewish children's home in Oslo, on one condition; she would not be responsible for their religious education. In 1941 the directors deceased father joined the home. As for many of the other kids, Nina became a replacement for their lost families. When the director was born in 1966 her father named her after Nina.
Early morning on the 26th of November 1942 the Norwegian police arrested Jewish women and children for deportation to Auschwitz. The night before Nina received a phone call warning them. Thanks to several helpful women, the children escaped in the night. Later on they fled to Sweden.
How did the war affect the children, the choices they made for themselves and their offspring? How come some deny their background and war experiences while others recognize and identify with it? Is there an explanation to why some chose secular lifestyles while others went for Jewish orthodoxy, Christianity and other religions? How come the paths they took are so multiple, and in what way did Nina influence them?
