Saturday, January 3, 2009

Swedish TV documentary: Med adresslapp om halsen

Today I was fortunate to see most of a
Swedish TV documentary called
"Med adresslapp om halsen".
In English perhaps translated as
"With an address tag around your neck".

During the Second World War around
70 000 Finish children were sent to Sweden
for safekeeping. After the war the Finish
governemt demanded the children to be
returned to Finland, even when the Finish
mothers or parents thought it would be
better for their beloved children to stay

with their Swedish fosterparents at a
time life in Finland was extremely difficult.

This resulted in many tragedies:
Some of the around 10000 who , in the end,

were allowed to stay in Sweden ,
lost contact with their parents and siblings,

with their language and culture.

Some grew up with great resentment,
often to their Finish parents and sometimes
to Finland in general.

Those who were sent back to Finland,
often had a very difficult life there,
feeling they had been cheated out of the
lives with their Swedish families.

I feel this documentary was very well done,
giving the complexity of the decision to
send the children to Sweden and then of
the decision to return them to Finland.

I usually don't cry much, but I had tears
in my eyes several times.

Here is a Swedish explanation about this film http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=81516&a=1353339


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