Swabian children

They were taken in spring and brought to the child markets in Germany, mainly in Upper Swabia, where they would be purchased or "rented" by farmers for the season.

The marches were large, organised groups of several thousand children, taken over the snow-covered mountains often still dressed in rags.

Many immigration certificates from Swabia show surnames typical of Tyrol and other regions the children were taken from (e.g. Braxmeier from Braxmarer).

Film synopsis: After his mother is killed in an avalanche, the farmer boy Kaspar is sent by his struggling father to work in Swabia.

There the miraculous story begins: The brutal treatment of the boy by the farmer, his escape, emigration to the United States, and final home coming to his village many years later to visit his dying father.