Friday, October 9, 2015

A Boy on the Run From the Holocaust

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By Skip Sheffield

There are at least 8 million stories about the Holocaust. Very few are told from the point of view of a child.

“Run Boy Run” is based on a novel by Uri Orlev, which we are told is based on a true story that occurred in Poland in World War II. Srulik (Andrzej Tkacz as young Srulik and Kamil Tkacz as an older Srulik) is an 8-year-old boy from the Polish Jewish ghetto whose entire family is wiped out in the Nazi invasions of 1942. Srulik flees Warsaw and hides out in the snowy, freezing woods. He finds a friendly Christian farm woman who takes him in out of pity and tells him to change his name to the more Catholic-sounding Jurek Stanlak. Srulik adapts well to his new Christian identity, but there is peril at every corner. As the title implies, “Run Boy Run” is a series of narrow escapes by the plucky, resourceful boy. The story is not without a certain amount of humor leavening the terror, for Srulik suffers terribly. The Tkacz brothers are enormously appealing and emotive. The movie amounts to an exciting adventure that sees the terror of the Holocaust from a fresh young viewpoint.

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