Released:
1992-01-01

Overview:
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.

Director:
Urs Egger

Runtime:
1h 57min

Genre:
History, Drama

• Cast:
• 
  Jasmin Tabatabai
  as
  Jana Kessel
• 
  Andrea Eckert
  as
  Theresa Kessel
• 
  Hans Peter Korff
  as
  Dr. Schoenefeld
• 
  Nina Petri
  as
  Fräulein Roth
• 
  Wolf-Dietrich Berg
  as
  Heinrich Hottinger