Miracle at Midnight

 

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

165 of 167 people found the following review helpful

Miracle at Midnight is a WONDERFUL Movie! A MUST-SEE!!

By LactivistAnti-VaccineLiberal on June 14, 2005

Format: DVD

I watched this outstanding Disney made-for-tv movie many, many times, and I LOVE it!!

I first saw when it premiered on TV on the "Wonderful World of Disney" show in the spring of 1998. At that time I taped it on a VHS tape off of TV, and I loved it so much that I watched it over and over many, many times.

I should have broken the security tab on the tape, but because there were still several hours of free space left on the tape (it was taped in EP/SLP mode) I thought I would wait until the tape was filled before breaking it.

Unfortunately a couple of years later, I ended up accidentally taping over this great movie with something else, thereby erasing it. I was so upset, and so I am VERY glad to FINALLY have this movie on DVD!!

Since getting this terrific movie on DVD I have watched it so many times I have lost count!! I am also going to buy the soundtrack for it too, because the music is so moving and poignant.

Miracle at Midnight is the touching made-for-TV movie based on true events during World War II. It is set in Denmark during September 1943,(the information in the Amazon.com Editorial Reviews is either a typo or other error)and stars Sam Waterston and Mia Farrow as

Dr. Karl (Waterston) and Doris(Farrow) Koster, a Christian couple living in Copenhagen with their two children, 18 year old Hendrik (Justin Whalin) and preteen Elsa (Nicola Mycroft) during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

When Dr. Koster learns that after three years of occupation, the Nazis are going to start deporting the Jewish people in Denmark, he and his family realize that they can no longer sit by and watch their friends, neighbors and countrymen, be taken, and dragged away to Nazi concentration camps and death camps. They decide to do whatever they can to help those in danger.

While Dr. Koster uses his position of Chief Surgeon to protect a young Resistance fighter who was shot by the Nazis, his 18 year old son Hendrik risks his life working for the same Resistance group, commandeering and seizing shipments of weapons that were sent to the Nazis.

But it all comes to a head on Wednesday, September 29, 1943, when Dr. Koster gets word that the Nazis have planned a mass arrest and deportation of all Jewish people, at Midnight on that Friday, which is the start of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.

Dr. Koster, his family, and his entire hospital staff, band together with the Resistance, and the Danish people,

realizing that they are going to have to work really fast if they want to save the thousands and thousands of innocent Jewish people in Denmark from being dragged off to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp by the Nazis.

They set up plans to find hiding places for the Jewish people, and get them safely through the initial raids, while they try to convince the Swedish government, to accept them, and find ways to transport them up the Danish coast to Sweden. As a majority of the Danes hate the Nazis, they are all willing to help, opening their homes, providing money and transportation.

While Hendrik works with the Resistance, securing trucks and other means to take Jewish people up the coast of Denmark to Sweden, his father, Dr. Karl Koster uses his position as Chief Surgeon at Christiana Hospital to hide Jews in the hospital, and his mother, Doris, and sister, Elsa, help out by letting their Jewish friends, Rabbi Ben Abrams, his wife, his daughter Hannah, and her fiance Michael hide in their attic.

Eventually the Nazis catch up to them, and the Kosters themselves are forced to flee for their lives. But before escaping, they are, in a matter of a couple of days, able to help save over 7,000 Danish Jews, in a miraculous rescue!

Miracle at Midnight is a TERRIFIC movie! It is just WONDERFUL having it on DVD! Now I can enjoy it for years to come!!

  43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

Touching, Uplifting Movie

By A Customer on June 27, 2000

Format: VHS Tape

The story of Christian Danes who risked their lives to save their Jewish fellow citizens from the Holocaust is not well known. This movie tells the story of one such Danish family, their struggles against Nazis and collaborators, and their efforts to save Danish Jews. Sam Waterston and Mia Farrow give outstanding performances. The story is gripping. More important, it will touch your heart.