Harris dwells more on the emotions of the rescued than on the motives of the rescuers. This film is something of a companion piece to Lisa Gossels's ''Children of Chabannes,'' which opened in June, though Mr. (The United States government, which could have sponsored a similar program, declined to do so.) ''Into the Arms of Strangers,'' a new documentary by Mark Jonathan Harris, tells the story of a group of Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia who were fortunate enough to escape, thanks to the Kindertransport, which took 10,000 children to the safety of England in the late 1930's. Having faced the worst evil that human beings are capable of, it has seemed necessary to pay compensatory attention to the persistence of kindness, bravery and resilience in monstrous circumstances. Claude Lanzmann's ''Shoah'' confronted viewers with the vast, unfathomable horror of genocide, emphasizing the indifference and complicity of European gentiles, a theme further explored in Marcel Ophuls's ''Hotel Terminus'' and ''The Sorrow and the Pity.'' But lately the emphasis has shifted to stories of survival, and testimonials to the courage of those who tried to protect European Jews from the Nazis.
The change has been especially evident in documentaries about the period. In recent years - perhaps the turning point was ''Schindler's List'' - films about the Holocaust have undergone a noticeable change in tone toward a redemptive, even hopeful reckoning with historical catastrophe.
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