A young Vietnamese Woman searches for her Father, a US Soldier who left her behind at the end of the war. A Japanese woman searches for her childhood friend, one of the few white Americans who stood up for her during World War 2. A survivor of the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai searches for the daughter of the couple who made it possible for him to survive. A survivor of the Mount Saint Helens disaster searches for the helicopter pilot who risked his own life to rescue her.
These are the stories of people put together, and torn apart, by history. In the new PBS series We’ll Meet Again, these stories are examined, and reunions made. The series is co-created and hosted by Ann Curry, whose ouster from the Today show several years ago caused such an outcry. She does the reporter’s job here, interviewing subjects and providing historical background.
Episodes follow a simple format. For the first third, we learn of the disaster, the war, the movement, what have you. We are introduced to someone involved, and get a detailed version of their story, including what they know and remember about the people they are trying to find. The middle third is the search, the combing through records, the interview of the witnesses. This section has a lot in common with another PBS show, Finding Your Roots. Then, once the records are found or the person with the crucial information is located, comes the reunion.
Sometimes the reunions aren’t with the people they’d hoped to meet again, but with descendants, or siblings. It doesn’t make them any less moving, or touching. What the series brings to these people can’t be quantified, but it is something like closure for both parties.
Each episode is an emotional journey, one well-worth taking for anyone interested in how broad sweeps of history impact the people caught up in them.
We’ll Meet Again with Ann Curry premieres Tuesday, Jan 23rd at 8:00 p.m. on KIXE Channel 9.
