Lena: My 100 Children (1987)

Lena and her 100 children

Fabulous movie, showing the character of a woman who loves children and fights for their safety. Their plight is obvious, they are Jewish children, want to learn, want to live. They were packed up in a place like chickens in a coupe, but this woman gave herself and her life to save these children and bring them to safety. Suspenseful and capturing the attention throughout the movie.We are passing this movie around among friends and everyone says: Now, THIS is a movie! A must for any movie library. I do not hesitate to highly recommend it. It must have been quite an undertaking to create this movie with all the clothes of that area and the props, etc. My hat off to all involved. Fabulous! August 9, 2008

Powerful Drama of Child Survivors and the Goodness of one Woman

This drama is a very moving story of the goodness of one woman in rescuing child survivors in Poland and of her determination that they become children again. August 7, 2008

Very Good Holocaust Movie~Such Love.

I own the VHS version and have watched it many times. This woman is incrediable. It is a very moving story and how she risked her like to save these childen. 100 children how she managed is nothing short of a miracle.

I love these stories where people help people durning a time that never should have happened. June 2, 2008

Excellent film

This is an exceptional true story and an excellent film. I have a special place in my heart for WWII history and this has surpassed my expectations. It opens your eyes to see past the myriad holocaust movies into the war that innocent children faced in Poland and how much difference one person's life makes.

I whole-heartedly recommend this film but don't keep it to yourself, share it. February 26, 2008

An Unsusal Holocaust Story about Jewish Children

Simply put, this is an amazing story, even more so because it is true! It is a TV movie, first shown on November 23, 1987, but it doesn't seem like a TV movie at all. In a way, it is a sort of story of both penance and Lena's growing love for the children. Lena, although a Jew, posed as a Catholic during the war. Feeling a bit guilty, after so many other Jews lost their lives in the gas chambers, when Lena discovered there were many orphaned Jewish children, she made it her mission to care for them as a way of making up for her 'sin' of denying her heritage.

It seems that Jews were as much hated by the Polish after the war as they were hated by the Gestapo during the war. So, she faced many difficult and even harrowing situations in her effort to protect, care for and educate those orphaned children. One interesting aspect was how the children who never denied their heritage felt toward those who became 'Catholic' when they lived as the children of many courageous Catholic families who adopted them for the duration of the war as a means of saving them. When circumstances in Poland became too dangerous to stay there, she began an odyssey, that would last two years, to smuggle the children across many borders to resettle in Palestine.

This isn't a classic movie, and I don't know how many Holocaust movies their needs to be. But, this is one certainly worth watching for the simple reason that it in many ways shows the persecution from a child's point of view. It also shows that Polish Jews - even innocent Jewish children - were in great danger after most people thought the Jew's 'War of Survival' was over.

Unfortunately, the real Lena Kuchler-Silberman passed away just a few weeks before this movie was first televised. June 9, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...