50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr and Mrs Kraus

“Heart-wrenching, thrilling and above all relevant.” – The New York Times

50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr and Mrs Kraus tells the dramatic, previously untold story of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Jewish couple from Philadelphia who, following their conscience, travelled to Nazi-controlled Vienna in spring 1939 to save a group of children. Amidst the impending horrors of the Holocaust, they put themselves in harms way to bring what would become the single largest known group of children allowed into the US during that time.

Faced with a number of imposing obstacles, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus courageously stood up against America's rigid immigration laws and the indifference of the United States government to the plight of Jewish refugees seeking to escape from Adolf Hitler's increasing persecution.

This tense and compelling story, narrated by Alan Alda, is brought to life by interviews with Holocaust historians and a trove of previously unseen home movies. The film weaves together excerpts from Eleanor’s journals, archival footage of Vienna and Berlin under Hitler’s rule and much of the bittersweet tale is told by some of the surviving children, who are now in their 70s and 80s.