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A tragic child lost in war Kindertransport Belgrade Theatre,
Coventry ***** KINDERTRANSPORT
is one of those less familiar incidents of the Second World War, a
rescue mission most people have never heard of – 10,000 unaccompanied
Jewish children sent to Britain mainly from Germany and Austria, but
also Czechoslovakia and Poland to escape the threat of Nazi Germany. Most were the only
members of their family to survive the Holocaust. Diane Samuels' play follows the life of just one
of the Kindertransport children, Eva, played by Gabrielle Dempsey with a
wonderful blend of charm and innocence as a child and then as a confused
young women as her old and new lives clash. It is not easy to age from
nine to 17 with little more than a hair ribbon and a new frock to help
you but it would be easy to believe her Eva and Evelyn were two
different actors. The play follows Eva from Hamburg to Manchester
and a new home with Lil, played with Northern
Cleverly intertwined with that story is the
present day where Lil's granddaughter Faith is about to leave home and
is helping to sort out the loft with her mother Evelyn to find things to
take with her to her new flat. Evelyn, played by Janet Dibley, is
motherly, in that annoying mother knows best way that mothers have, yet
at the same time she seems aloof and distant. The normal, warm and close loving relationship
seems missing, replaced by a coldness and a reluctance to let anyone
past the outer walls of her world. It does not take a genius to work out the link
between the threads, particularly when Faith finds a fairy tale book, a
very dark version of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, the Ratcatcher, –
Der Rattenfänger in German. The question comes down to how and why
Evelyn has become who she is. Director Andrew Hall cleverly separates the two
threads by the use of impressive lighting and actors turning to statues
when their story is not being told. Both stories occupy the same stage
and are set in a theatrical parallel universe. Particularly effective were the moving, brooding
clouds seen through the skylights and roof for scenes from the past, and
the same sky static and less threatening in the present day. The Ratcatcher is important to Eva. It is her
favourite fairy story, one which was frightening and exciting when she
was a little girl with her real mother Helga, played with a fatalistic
Jewish acceptance by Emma Deegan. Here is a mother who knows her likely
future but is desperate for her daughter to survive, And Samuels uses the evil figure, a gruesome
Halloween version of the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang, with hooked nose and long steel nails, as a symbol, to intimidate
whenever Eva feels threatened or the black clouds of despair descend.
He is also the officious, anti-sematic German
border guard who threatens to prevent Eva leaving, the billeting officer
in Manchester who can't speak German but can speak English slowly and
loudly, the railway porter who thinks Eva, or indeed any foreigner is a
spy, the postman with his Adolf Hitler impressions and anyone else
passing through what is very much a women's world. The inherent drama of Kindertransport is evident
from what it was, children sent alone, usually with no English and with
little more than the clothes they stood up in to a foreign land to stay
with people they had never met. The drama of the play though is the journey of
Eva from Hamburg to adulthood and the mental torment of Evelyn as she is
made to confront her past.
This is a fictional tale, but Samuels, who was in
the audience at the Belgrade, was born and brought up in the Jewish
community in Childwall in Liverpool with her first non-Jewish school
being university, so Kindertransport was part of her shared heritage. Eva might not of existed but many like her did
and her fictional story no doubt was reflected in the real lives and
emotions of many of the child refugees. The set, from Janet Shillingford is dramatic
before the play even starts, a loft with bare rafters open to the sky on
a raised stage crammed at the front with pairs of shoes – overwhelming
piles of shoes being one of the poignant and enduring images of
Auschwitz. Then there is the lighting again, from Matthew
Eagland, with a clever shuttering effect when Eva is on the train to
freedom and subtle changes to indicate past and present, touches which
add immensely to a production. Next month marks the 75th anniversary of
Kristallnacht, on November 9th and 10th when the Nazi party paramilitary
wing, the Sturmabteilung (SA), Ernst Röhm's brownshirts, aided by
non-Jewish civilians, attacked Jews and Jewish properties throughout
Germany and Austria. It is thought at least 91 Jews were killed, a
modest number in the light of what was to come, but 30,000 were arrested
and placed in concentration camps. Jewish homes, schools and hospitals
were ransacked and destroyed, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned and
7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.
The name, in English, Crystal night, might sound
like a romantic fairy tale, but in reality it referred to endless
streets littered with shards of glass from the destruction of Jewish
properties. That was the trigger for British Jewish and
Quaker leaders to appeal to the Government for help. Entry requirements
were waived, and group lists were accepted rather than individual
applications being required and the first rescued children, a party of
200, arrived at Harwich on December 2. A further 10,000 arrived over the next nine
months until the outbreak of war on 1 September, 1939. Many remained
after the war, not surprising with no family, homes or life to return
to, and no less than four of the Kinder became Nobel Prize winners. This is a production which takes you out of your
comfort zone as an excellent cast create a fine piece of theatre to show
the raw emotional cost of war for just one family - one of 10,000 - and
that makes for an absorbing and worthwhile evening. Roger Clarke
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cheerfulness by Paula Wilcox who gives the impression it will take a lot
more than Hitler and the Blitz to come between her and her new found
only child.