Animation that reaches all around the world!
Back in 2013, we interviewed six world war two Holocaust survivors living in Leeds who were then part of a charity the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association.
We asked them about their experiences of escaping nazi occupied Europe as young children and how they started a new life in the UK and animated their stories.
We also made live action interviews with each of them reflecting on how this had impacted on their later experiences as adults and why it’s still important to talk about the Holocaust today.
The real experiences of Holocaust survivors
The six survivors we spoke to are amazingly brave people who’ve been through terrible times.
The pain of witnessing atrocities, being split up from their families, having other family members murdered by the nazis, being secretly smuggled and hidden away, surviving in ghettos and concentration camps, surviving the blitz and internment as enemy aliens in the UK.
These are just the experiences of the six people we interviewed, so it gives you an idea of the scale of suffering that individuals at this time had to endure.
Yet they survived, had families of their own, and went on to live full, successful lives, whilst remaining kind and compassionate people. As we spoke to them their message was clear – that there is a need for tolerance, understanding and peace in the world, and how often it is children and young people who become the innocent victims of war.
We were deeply impacted by the interviews we conducted, and it gave us a fierce determination to do them proud in the delivery of the project.
Our creative team
Fettle producer Kath Shackleton led the editorial and production work.
We had a great team supporting the project, with Exec Producer Katy Jones from the BBC and animation producer Helen Brunsdon, now in charge of The British Animation Awards.
Broadcast Journalist Liz Molyneux helped with the interviews and with the editorial work. Tim Baxter did the camera work on the interviews.
Music was from the Composer Works‘ Paul Honey and The Digital Audio Company’s Dave Aston did a great job with the sound.
The art of Children of the Holocaust
The project was driven artistically by animation director Zane Whittingham. He tried to find a way to simplify the artistic ideas – creating a different colour palette for each animation. He carefully researched the era and found historical reference with authentic period details in each shot.
He looked at popular comic books such as Art Speigelman’s Maus and many German Expressionists, political cartoonists from the era and artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz for inspiration and fused them with his own style of drawing and animation. He exaggerated the nazi characters making them giants playing with the lives of children – showing what a devastating effect they had on jewish families across Europe.
He was supported by a fabulous team of graduate artists and animators from then Creative Skillset’s (now ScreenSkills) Animation Trainee Finder. Thanks to Ryan Jones, Oana Nechifor, Laura Tattersfield and Sadie Ewart for their outstanding work on this project.
Legacy
The animations have had a much bigger impact than we ever thought possible!
It’s done amazingly well as a resource for schools in the UK, sitting on all of the BBC Learning platforms.
We edited the shorts together as a one hour documentary which has played on BBCFour for Holocaust Memorial Day twice.
It’s been shortlisted for major animation festivals around the work including Annecy Animation Festival, Chicago Children’s Film Festival and many more.
Worldwide distribution
Our Sales Agent Sydney Neter from SND films has enabled Children of the Holocaust to be broadcast in countries around the world including Austria, Germany, Canada, Israel, France, USA, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, Romania and Croatia.
Sydney also helped us to connect with the United Nations who broadcast the animations in 19 centres around the world for Holocaust Memorial Day in 2018, and flew us to New York to give a screening and a talk in the UN Chambers on the 24th January 2018.
Awards
We’ve won lots of awards – the first ever Sandford St Martin’s Children’s Award, a Japan Prize Special Jury Award and two Royal Television Society Awards.
It also received a Children’s BAFTA nomination, a British Animation Awards Nomination, a Prix Europa Shortlisting plus British Universities’ Film and Video Council Learning Onscreen Award nomination.
Graphic Novel
We also made a graphic novel based on the animation – we were able to pull out frames from the original artwork and make into comic book form.
One of the original animators from the production Ryan Jones did this, working with publishers Hachette/Franklin Watts.
They’ve done a great job translating the graphic novel Survivors of the Holocaust into French, Dutch, Italian and making a version for US audiences. This won the Schools Library Information Book Award and Le Petit Albert Award in France and continues to be shortlisted by organisations such as Booktrust as recommended non-fiction reading for young people.
How animation deals with sensitive subjects
We knew when we made the animation how impactful it could be. How animation can deal with sensitive subjects and make them more abstract and easier for children to understand without showing the gory detail of violence. What we didn’t realise was how far spread around the world people who were impacted by the Holocaust were, and how important making sense of what happened and continuing to fire out warnings from history would still be today. We are so grateful to the kindness and compassion of these extraordinary survivors in continuing to tell their story.
Lilian Black OBE
We’d also like to pay tribute to the extraordinary Lilian Black OBE the chair of the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association who did so much behind the scenes to make this happen supporting the survivors, who passed away last year. She is much missed. She set up the wonderful Holocaust Exhibition and Education Centre at University of Huddersfield which continues this wonderful work – do pay them a visit when you are in the area! https://
Fettle
Fettle Animation is a multi-award-winning 2d animation studio, serving Leeds, Manchester, London and beyond