Summary: Four elderly Dutch people remember how as children recently liberated from the POW camps in Indonesia, they regained their childhood when they were sent to Fairbridge Farm School in Australia.
How can you not air a story about children being freed from POW camps! Extraordinarily griping and disturbing stories about Dutch children returning from Japanese POW camps after WWII and then "civilized" on an estate in Australia. The half-hour piece is brimming with witnesses who speak in a way that's dynamic and engaging so that the listener is sucked into the story immediately. The producer did a nice job arranging the half-hour so that the tragic parts are in the beginning and then ending up when they talk about the details of how nice the farm was.
The piece is in the traditional BBC/RN style that might be too rushed for American audiences. Another small hurdler American audiences must leap is the lack of a more paced introduction that would include a bit of history about how children ended up in POW camps. I still don't know why the kids were in a war situation or how they were captured or freed.
Comments for RN Documentary: Fairbridge Farm School
This piece belongs to the series "RN Documentaries"
Produced by Dheera Sujan
Other pieces by Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Rating Summary
1 comment
Charles Lane
Posted on July 25, 2006 at 08:47 PM | Permalink
Review of RN Documentary: Fairbridge Farm School
How can you not air a story about children being freed from POW camps! Extraordinarily griping and disturbing stories about Dutch children returning from Japanese POW camps after WWII and then "civilized" on an estate in Australia. The half-hour piece is brimming with witnesses who speak in a way that's dynamic and engaging so that the listener is sucked into the story immediately. The producer did a nice job arranging the half-hour so that the tragic parts are in the beginning and then ending up when they talk about the details of how nice the farm was.
The piece is in the traditional BBC/RN style that might be too rushed for American audiences. Another small hurdler American audiences must leap is the lack of a more paced introduction that would include a bit of history about how children ended up in POW camps. I still don't know why the kids were in a war situation or how they were captured or freed.
But over all nicely done!