The Baby

“Beautiful, heartrending, poignant documentary” – Moviescene

Anneke Thompson-Kohnke’s past has always been a mystery. She was brought to the US as a ‘war baby’ at the age of five. Sixty-five years later Anneke's courier, Cora, knocks on her door. So unfolds a confrontation that reveals remarkable truths that for decades had been hidden.

Up until this point Anneke led an ordinary life. She does not remember anything before the boat ride from the Netherlands to the United States that she took as a six year old in 1946.

Through a series of interviews, childhood photos and archival materials, The Baby reconstructs Anneke’s early life: She was born in Hilversum in northern Holland on Christmas day 1940 to a young Jewish musician and his wife. Anne Frank was her babysitter in Amsterdam (their mothers were friends in Germany) and her parents hired a courier to secret her to safety to a Christian family in Voorburg when she was less than two years old. But how did she come to live in New York three years later? Revelatory and heartbreaking, The Baby is the story of Anneke’s past unfolding before her.