They survived nightmarish concentration camps and years on the run while hiding in forests and abandoned buildings, but when the orphaned children of the Holocaust needed a place to call home, Canada refused them entry.

This ugly chapter of Canadian history, along with the fears and hopes of some of the orphans Ottawa finally did allow into the country, are highlighted in the documentary Children of the Storm, which makes its world premiere Tuesday at 9 p.m. on Vision TV.

France had accepted some Jewish orphans of the Second World War in 1942 and there were also calls for Canada to take in 5,000 kids.

Ottawa rejected the children despite pleas by the Canadian Jewish Congress, which had lobbied Ottawa for more than a decade as the anti-Semitic Adolf Hitler became increasingly powerful.

The documentary says the congress promised the federal government that Jewish families would provide the orphans with shelter, education and other needs but Ottawa still balked.

All 5,000 youngsters Canada had refused to accept died at Auschwitz, says filmmaker Jack Kuper.

It wasn't until 1947 that the Canadian government agreed to take in 1,123 orphans on the condition that they would not be an economic burden to the country.

The two-hour documentary is punctuated by a haunting tune called Where Shall I Go, sung in English and Yiddish by Vancouverite Claire Klein Osipov.

Despite the hardships faced by the orphans, many now in their 70s, the stories they tell are marked with courage, determination and even humour.

Kuper, himself a survivor, interviewed dozens of war orphans who speak candidly about their new life in Canada and the challenges of having lived through some of humanity's worst atrocities.

Those of us who came here were already survivors and we had gone through hell and we'd learned a few traits, Kuper said in an interview.

He was adopted by a family in Toronto after spending much of his childhood on the run in Poland. He then lived in a displaced persons' camp in Germany before going to Belgium and finally arriving in Canada in 1947 at age 15.

Kuper, who went on to a successful career as a graphic artist, writer and director at the CBC, said that the struggle to survive after the death of his mother and brother at a concentration camp forced him to exist on two levels.

I have one which is the Canadian Jack Kuper living a normal life with children and a wife and grandchildren, going about my business, he said.

But the other is that there are images in my head that never vanish, which run like a loop on a projector. That's something you can never shake.

Kuper said he and other survivors were afraid to even tell anyone in Canada that they were Jewish because the anti-Semitic views of the time were so widespread.

Even doctors who knew full well that orphans who had spent their childhood in a concentration camp and couldn't have received any schooling rejected them for entry into Canada on grounds that they were illiterate.

One child was denied admission because he was flat-footed.

Other war orphans speak in the documentary about the enduring heartache of the last time they saw their parents - when they were herded into cattle cars heading to concentration camps, where six million Jews would die.

Some of the children left Europe without siblings over 18 because they were too old to be accepted into Canada.

Still others were separated from brothers and sisters in Canada as they began their new lives with foster parents, who also share their views about a bleak period in Canadian history when Jews were barred from entering certain hotels and jobs.

Survivors such as Robbie Waisman kept their painful past a secret from friends and family as they strove to become hardworking members in their adopted homeland.

But Waisman broke his silence after 30 years when Alberta teacher Jim Keegstra began teaching students that the Holocaust was a hoax.

Waisman started touring schools and sharing his experiences and through that came to terms with his childhood demons.

Kuper said that despite the Canadian government's stonewalling, the survivors will always be grateful for being given another chance at life.

All of us, all these kids, were remnants, we were messengers, we were representatives of those that had perished, Kuper said.

Each one of those children represented maybe hundreds of people and I think we wanted to succeed at any cost because we had to prove to ourselves and maybe to the world, that we deserved to live.