Ruined Landscapes, Ruined Futures

Chapter 3 Interactive content and curations

Introduction to Chapter 3: Ruined Landscapes, Ruined Futures: Rehoming Europe’s Displaced Children 

Images of homeless Jewish and traumatized children and youth are explored in Chapter 3. It focuses on institutional efforts to re-home Jewish orphaned and displaced children alongside transnational efforts to reclaim Europe’s children for liberal re-education in the emerging Cold War climate in Poland. It also examines the custodial control of children across different scales and gendered approaches to parenting, including fundraising films from organizations in Poland, the United States and Palestine. An extended analysis of the fundraising behemoth, Seeds of Destiny (1946) opens the chapter. The analysis is augmented with interactive aids and analyses of geo-visual storytelling within these films, such as cine-maps. 


Geolocator: Seeds of Destiny production geography

Seeds of Destiny title card

The geolocator below charts the production geography and fieldwork that informed Seeds of Destiny (1946). Locations are mapped sequentially and reconstructed from director David Miller's inventory of items that he submitted for reimbursement. Notable events from the Seeds of Destiny "Daily Report" will be added to the map over time.

Seeds of Destiny (1946)

(Credit: Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration)

(Credit: Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration)

They Live Again (1943)

(Credit: The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archives of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the World Zionist Organization)

The Forgotten Children (1945)

(Credit: The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archives of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the World Zionist Organization)

We Live Again (1946)

(Excerpt) (Credit: National Center for Jewish Film, at Brandeis University)

StoryMap created for Restless Archive: The Holocaust and the Cinema of the Displaced (Indiana University Press, 2023)

(c) Simone Gigliotti, 2023

Seeds of Destiny title card