Children of the Open Road

Children of the Open Road

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew
  • Recommendations

Status

Released

Release Date

Jan 1, 1992

Runtime

1h 57m

Genres

History, Drama

User Score

50%

Original Title

Kinder der Landstrasse

Production Companies

Panorama Films (CH), Lichtblick Film, Wega Film

Director

Urs Egger

Description

In 1939, after barely escaping the Nazis, a Gypsy family returns to Switzerland only to be torn apart by racial persecution in the benign guise of children's welfare. This fictionalized story of Jana, an eight-year-old Gypsy girl snatched from her parents and consigned to a life of orphanages and bleak foster homes, is based on a little-known chapter of Swiss history: From 1926 to 1972, the state-supported Pro Juventute, a children's aid foundation, forcibly removed some 700 Gypsy children from their families, in order to sever the ties with their culture and assimilate them to a "better way of life." The underlying aim was to preempt a new generation's caravans from following their nomadic traditions along Switzerland's country lanes.