Although the story of the children chronicled in Kindertransport are fictional, real-life events inspire them. As author Diane Samuels' play explains, the kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was organized to take vulnerable Jewish youth out of Germany after the night of broken glass, or Kristallnacht, and bring them to safety in the United Kingdom.
Kindertransport is framed as the recollections of an older woman named Evelyn, sitting in her storage room in her London home, looking back on her childhood in World War II. In particular, Evelyn focuses on a young girl named Eva Schlesinger and her mother, Helga. The year is 1939, and Helga is concerned for her daughter's safety because of Hitler and his Nazi party. Helga gives Eva a pair of shoes with their family's priceless jewelry sewn inside and sends her daughter to the United Kingdom for her safety.
Eva initially doesn't understand why she is being sent to the United Kingdom but doesn't fight her mother. Meanwhile, Evelyn frets over whether she should sell her house and contends with her relationship with her daughter, who is going to college very soon. Ultimately, Evelyn decides not to sell the house, fearing that leaving the house would be leaving the memories she made there and the people she had met throughout her life.
Samuels then reveals that Evelyn is Eva, which startles and rattles Evelyn's daughter to her core. Evelyn's daughter is troubled by the revelation, but Evelyn attempts to repair the damage done to their relationship and decides to tell her daughter more about her past.
Evelyn's actions show how guilty and ashamed of her actions she was. Evelyn explains to her daughter that she was one of the only people in her family to survive the Holocaust. Although she eventually assimilated into the culture of the U.K., Evelyn explained that she longed for home and resented her mother for abandoning her. That dichotomy was a core part of who Evelyn became. She became ashamed of who she became and struggled to reconcile that she was the only person who made it safely past the Holocaust.
Thematically, Kindertransport explores the transformative effects of racism, being a voluntary orphan, loss, and integrating into a new culture. The play's tone is mournful; Evelyn looks back at what could have been had Hitler not rampaged across Europe. In that sense, Kindertransport is a poem about memory and how memory changes over time.
Eventually, Evelyn and her daughter make amends, showing the importance of forgiveness and the unbreakable bond of family. Ultimately, Kindertransport is also a play about family and its importance. Without her adopted family in the United Kingdom, Evelyn would not have been able to survive in England. And without her daughter, she would not have been fulfilled.
