This may be the work that I am most proud of, to date. Before you watch the film, I ask that you be somewhere quiet and comfortable, where you can take it all in and process what you see. Double-click the video to go full screen, and turn up the volume. This is an important story that hasn’t often been told, yet I feel it as relevant today as it was then.
The Kindertransport saved thousands of young, Jewish, children from certain death in the concentration camps. Parents sent their children to live with adoptive parents across free Europe, never to see them again in most cases. The children spoke a different language and practiced a different religion. Yet, these people took in these children, and raised them as their own. It’s a remarkable story.
How does this relate today? In Greece, the Golden Dawn party is the third largest, and has seats both in the Greek and the European Parliaments. They are a violent neo-Nazi and fascist group, that uses Nazi imagery and holds Nazi leaders in respect. They are not the only ones. Neo-Nazi groups like Die Richte in Germany, and others, are on the rise across Europe. In Africa and the Middle East you have groups like the Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram that are targeting Christians. In February, IS beheaded 21 Christians in a mass execution. Boko Haram continues to burn churches, kidnap girls, and threaten Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.
I fail to see how we can continue to turn a blind eye to these things. I am, by no means, one to intervene in foreign affairs with the casualty we have over the last century-plus. When we see the threat of genocide raising its ugly head again, however, we must speak out. The 1930’s are playing themselves out again right before our eyes.
I believe that love is the only way; love for our neighbors and our enemies. We’ve got to love the person that cuts us off in traffic, and the person that screws up our drive through order. That said, when we’ve loved all we can and people are still intent on killing others (especially mass murder), we need to take a stand. We need to neutralize the threat.
That’s what this film means to me. Rob came to me with the storyboards and rough song sketch last winter, and I was in love with the idea. I recorded all of the tracks in my home studio, and personally played all of the instruments (minus the violin and lead vocals). I laid down the guitar, bass guitar, keys, cello, shaker, background vocals, snare, and floor tom tracks. We then went to The Library studio in Minneapolis, where we co-mixed the track with Matt Patrick who did a fantastic job. He captured our vision and then some!
Matt, Rob, and I then shot the performance part of the film at The Library. Anthony Cousins, who filmed this and the other shots, edited it all together into what you see here.
The premiere party was in Edina on February 8th, 2015. As we finally got to see what our work had wrought, we all sat speechless at the end. We watched it again, and still were speechless. I was expecting to be proud of this work, but nothing like this. I hope you are moved by this film. More importantly, I hope you are moved to share it. Not because this is my work, but because this is an important and timely story. After WWII, they said “never again”, but it is happening again. Let us all be vigilant and stand against evil in love.
Peace, Love, and Liberty,
Jason Bradley