When Eva arrives in London, speaking no English, and feeling very much abandoned, she is taken under the wing of Lil Miller. Renowned theatre company Shared Experience also revived the play to great acclaim for a regional tour in 2007. 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.

In this author’s guide to the play, Diane Samuels investigates the historical background, drawing on the personal testimony of those whose lives were transformed by the Kindertransport. Kindertransport was first performed in the UK by the Soho Theatre Company at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone, in London on 13 April 1993 and in the US at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York on 26 April 1994.It was developed by staff, scholars, artists and volunteers overseen by Arnold Mittelman, founding NJTF President/Project Director, and by Dr. The play enjoyed a season in London's West End, playing at the Vaudeville Theatre from 9 September to 30 November 1996. 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. 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. 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.Eva and Lil fall out as Eva skips her English lessons to go and ask round rich houses if they will give her parents jobs; Lil thinks this makes her seem desperate. by Robert Skloot 2022 NJTF HTII Lifetime Achievement Award AHO Winter Conference, Miami, FL I’d like to begin my remarks by asking the question that all of us have been asked often: “Why do you do the work you do? Lil allows Eva to smoke when she meets her which shows how Lil is not a proper guardian for Eva at first. 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. Kindertransport won the 1992 Verity Bargate Award and was subsequently staged by the Soho Theatre Company at the Cockpit Theatre in London in 1993.

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.

Subsequently the play has been produced in San Francisco with awards, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Austria, Canada and South Africa. The play also focuses on the now assimilated and completely dislocated Eva’s alienation from her actual mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, and the discovery by Faith, Eva’s daughter, of her mother’s unspoken past. 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. In 1939, at the start of the play’s earlier timeline, Helga sends her young daughter Eva to live in England. Eva Schlesinger, daughter of Helga and Werner, is sent away to live with a foster carer in Manchester, England, temporarily until her parents find work and move to England too.

It's a refreshing change for a study guide to come from the pen of the person who created the text being studied. 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 play is also available as an A4 Edition, offering spiral binding, a larger print size and additional space for notes.