Hoppets hamn

Allowed 76 minutes • 2011 • 7.7

In the spring and summer of 1945, nearly 30,000 survivors from the German concentration camps arrive to Sweden. On the quayside in Malmö harbor they experience their first moments of freedom. This is where life begins again. The film photographers are in place, documenting the smiling, nine-year-old girl Irene, who gets off the ferry. In the same archive film, we see how newborn Ewa is carried ashore by her exhausted mother, supported by a Red Cross sister. These dramatic film sequences form the basis of Magnus Gerttens documentary. Hoppets Hamn is a movie about the moment of freedom and the questions the survivors have carried with them ever since the war. At the same time, it is a story about the helping hand that Malmö and Sweden stretched out to those who survived the concentration camps. The film is based on several years of research and contains unique archive material, which has been carefully restored.