Kindertransport by Diane Samuels

How would you feel if you were nine years old and your own mother put you on a train headed into a foreign country and an uncertain future, maybe never to see her again? In 1939, Eva Schlesinger is nine years old. A German-jewish girl, she has been entered by her parents for the “Kindertransport”, a rescue measure undertaken by the British government to save jewish children from Nazi prosecution. Having arrived in Britain she is taken in by the Miller family and successively adapts to English language and lifestyle. But her childhood experiences do not leave her unharmed.

What happens if you open a box and out fall family photographs and documents. But they are not at all what you expected. How would you feel if your family history changed within an afternoon? Faith, an aimless twenty-something and, according to her mother, good at making a mess, stumbles onto such a box. Neither Evelyn, her mother, neither grandmother Lil can persuade the young woman to “un-know” the discovered facts. However, Lil and Evelyn have their own special way of dealing with the past.

Coping with the past in order to master present and future is something of vital importance in Kindertransport. Each of the five women in the play is caught up in her own struggle, sometimes forming alliances, sometimes turning against the others. Daughters who condemn their mothers because of irresponsibility and mothers who accuse their daughters of ingratitude shape the different plots of the play. And then there is of course the mythical rat-catcher looming ever ready in the shadows to pounce on the ungrateful…

If you are interested in more information about the historical Kindertransport you can try the Kindertransport Association Home Page