Kindertransport

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. 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. 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.

Format: Drama

Cast Size:1M/5F

Character breakdown:

Evelyn: 50s, English middle-class woman
Faith: 20s, Evelyn’s only child
Eva: Evelyn’s younger self
Helga: German-Jewish woman of the late 1930s
Lil: 80s, Eva/Evelyn’s English foster mother
The Rat Catcher

Notes:

An L.A. Theatre Works audio recording of the play is available.

See also Voices: Plays for Studying the Holocaust, Janet E. 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.

Original or Prominent Production:
The Cockpit, Gateforth Street, London, 1993

Original Language: English

Publisher:

Nick Hern Books

Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Survivors and Subsequent Generations | Escape