Bobw235
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
Saw this the other night on Netflix and was captivated by this true story of survival.
At the center of Run Boy Run is the lad born as Israel Fridman, but nicknamed Srulik, the son of a baker in the Polish village of Blonie.
In 1942, the now eight-year old Srulik is smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hunkers down, wet, cold and hungry, in a vast Polish forest.
He first falls in with a band of orphaned Jewish youngsters who raid Polish farms for food and wood, but when that falls apart, Srulik again strikes out on his own.
Knocking at the doors of Polish farmers to ask for shelter in return for work, Srulik encounters rejections and even beatings, but finally is taken by Magda, the wife and mother of Polish partisans (portrayed by Elizabeth Duda in a stellar performance).
Magda is warm-hearted, brave, but above all practical. Knowing that Srulik will have a better chance of survival as a Catholic boy than as a Jew, she renames him Jurek, teaches him the Hail Mary prayer, gives him a crucifix and, above all, warns him never to take down his pants, or relieve himself, in front of a Pole.
Despite all precautions, word spreads in the village that Magda is hiding a Jew, the SS raids and torches her home, and after some heart-stopping escapes, the boy is again on the run.
Finding work on one farm, the boy’s arm is caught in a wheat-grinding machine and has to be amputated. Even after this horrendous accident, Jurek survives to welcome the Russian liberators and, still passing as a Catholic, spends the next three years in an orphanage in Lodz.
In one of the film’s few light episodes, Jurek earns extra food from sympathetic adults by spinning wild stories about how he lost his arm, first blaming a German tank and finally assuring his listeners that Hitler personally cut off his arm.
In 1948, he is tracked down by a Jewish search agency and, despite the boy’s initial denials that he is a Jew, he eventually returns to his ancestral roots.
At the center of Run Boy Run is the lad born as Israel Fridman, but nicknamed Srulik, the son of a baker in the Polish village of Blonie.
In 1942, the now eight-year old Srulik is smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hunkers down, wet, cold and hungry, in a vast Polish forest.
He first falls in with a band of orphaned Jewish youngsters who raid Polish farms for food and wood, but when that falls apart, Srulik again strikes out on his own.
Knocking at the doors of Polish farmers to ask for shelter in return for work, Srulik encounters rejections and even beatings, but finally is taken by Magda, the wife and mother of Polish partisans (portrayed by Elizabeth Duda in a stellar performance).
Magda is warm-hearted, brave, but above all practical. Knowing that Srulik will have a better chance of survival as a Catholic boy than as a Jew, she renames him Jurek, teaches him the Hail Mary prayer, gives him a crucifix and, above all, warns him never to take down his pants, or relieve himself, in front of a Pole.
Despite all precautions, word spreads in the village that Magda is hiding a Jew, the SS raids and torches her home, and after some heart-stopping escapes, the boy is again on the run.
Finding work on one farm, the boy’s arm is caught in a wheat-grinding machine and has to be amputated. Even after this horrendous accident, Jurek survives to welcome the Russian liberators and, still passing as a Catholic, spends the next three years in an orphanage in Lodz.
In one of the film’s few light episodes, Jurek earns extra food from sympathetic adults by spinning wild stories about how he lost his arm, first blaming a German tank and finally assuring his listeners that Hitler personally cut off his arm.
In 1948, he is tracked down by a Jewish search agency and, despite the boy’s initial denials that he is a Jew, he eventually returns to his ancestral roots.
