Many scenes were shot amidst the actual ruins of the postwar German cities Ingolstadt, Munich, Nuremberg and Würzburg.

[3] Filming took place between June and November 1947, first on location in Germany and then at a studio in Zurich, Switzerland for interior scenes.

Its European premiere was held at the Empire, Leicester Square in London on November 2, 1949 in aid of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with Queen Mary in attendance.

However, the communist government of Czechoslovakia would not permit Jandl to travel to the United States to collect the Oscar and a Golden Globe award that he had also won.

In Allied-occupied Germany after World War II, trains transport homeless children (Displaced Persons), under the care of Mrs. Murray and other United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) workers, to a transit camp where they are fed and protected.

The next morning UNRRA officials begin the challenging process of identifying the children and reuniting them with their surviving families, if any.

The children in Karel's group are terrified at first because the Nazis often used ambulances to kill victims via poison gas but eventually they enter the vehicle.

Steve eventually finds Karel and tells him that his mother is dead, as he has reason to believe she was gassed when she arrived at Auschwitz.

MGM paid $300,000 for the film outright and were rewarded when it became a solid box office success earning over $850,000 in rentals in its first year.

[2] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film high praise, calling it "an absorbing and gratifying emotional drama of the highest sort".

The film was written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius and stars Bérénice Bejo and Annette Bening.