Filmmaker Probes Britain's 'Forsaken Promise' to the Jews
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
May 12, 2006Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Britain's broken promise to the Jewish people to establish a homeland for them in the early 20th Century contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, the producer of a newly released documentary said.
"The Forsaken Promise" tells the story of Britain's promise in 1917 to help establish a Jewish homeland and its subsequent reneging on that pledge in the decades to come, until the State of Israel finally was established in 1948.
Produced by the Hatikvah Film Trust, a Christian organization based in Britain, the film recently premiered at the former British Detention Camp at Atlit on the Mediterranean Sea just south of the Israeli coastal city of Haifa. (An abridged version also was shown in Jerusalem.)
The British used Atlit to imprison "illegal" Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Many hoped they would find a safe haven in what was then British Mandate Palestine. But instead of finding refuge, they met with stiff resistance. Those caught were shipped out to detention camps, mainly in Cyprus.
Producer and director Hugh Kitson, a British Christian, said the purpose of the film was to "bring about repentance" in Great Britain over a little known part of history.
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