Kindertransport (NHB Modern Plays)

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When Evelyn was nine, her mother Helga sent her to live in England to keep her safe from Nazi persecution. It's a refreshing change for a study guide to come from the pen of the person who created the text being studied.

Through flashbacks, the play presents the hardships faced by Eva, a nine-year-old child sent on a Kindertransport and taken in by a British family. Kindertransport depicts the agony of separating a child from her parents and wrestles with the consequences of that choice, an act of sacrifice that also wreaks devastating results. Brutally separated from her German Jewish parents at the age of nine, Eva is brought to England with the promise of a new life. Teresa Eyring Executive Director Theatre Communications Group (TCG) AHO Conference, Miami, FL TCG is a national organization for theatre, based in New York.Kindertransport is based on the experiences of children who were allowed to leave Nazi Germany for England in 1938/39 and who were separated from their families, many of whom perished during the Holocaust. Kindertransport is a play by Diane Samuels, which examines the life, during World War II and afterwards, of a Kindertransport child. The play jumps back and forth between three time periods: 1) Pre-war - in which Helga tries to prepare Eva to leave her home and parents; 2) War - in which Eva is living in England with Lil, adjusting to a new country, and desperately trying to get her parents out of Germany; and 3) Post-war, in which Eva (who has now changed her name to Evelyn) is an adult, has a daughter named Faith, and has intentionally wiped most of her past and her Jewishness out of existence. When Eva arrives in London, speaking no English, and feeling very much abandoned, she is taken under the wing of Lil Miller. Eva is at a Manchester train station waiting for her parents, who promised they would secure their visas and reunite with Eva in England, when a station guard approaches her.

All of this takes place in the attic of Evelyn's house, which supposedly represents Evelyn's psyche. The play tells the story of how nine-year-old Eva, a German Jewish girl, is sent by her parents on the Kindertransport to start a new life with a foster family in Britain just before the outbreak of World War Two. They have an argument and Helga leaves, which is then followed by an imaginary vicious, angry argument between Helga and Evelyn in which Evelyn gets out all of her hatred for Helga, and she proclaims that Helga IS the Ratcatcher, a character constantly present in the play. Lil allows Eva to smoke when she meets her which shows how Lil is not a proper guardian for Eva at first.

Between 1939 until the outbreak of World War II, nearly 10,000 Jewish children were taken from their families in Nazi-occupied Germany and sent to live with foster families in Britain. This includes Remembrance Readings of plays from the Holocaust Theater Catalog done by numerous organizations led by Theaters, Museums, Universities, Artists and Educators. When her own daughter discovers some old letters and photos in the attic, she is forced to confront the truth about who she really is and to reveal a dark secret that she has done everything to keep hidden.

Eva’s imagination transforms the official (and most other authority figures) into the Ratcatcher, a mythical villain from a children’s book Helga used to read to Eva.A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International. Helga and Werner Schlesinger are parents faced with the difficult choice of keeping their beloved daughter Eva in Germany with them, or letting her become one of the Kindertransport children, who are sent to the UK, alone. Rubin (Scarecrow Press, 1999), a compilation of eight plays, including Kindertransport, along with related activities and resources for upper elementary, middle and high school students.