Show about girl escaping Nazis comes to museum

A puppet show telling the story of a Czech-Jewish girl escaping on a Kindertransport train in the 1930s is coming to a museum.

Kinder, a show using table-top puppetry and shadow play, tells the story of Babi, who travels across Europe and discovers how tiny acts of kindness can change the course of a person's life.

Kindertransport was the name given to the mission which took thousands of children to safety ahead of World War Two.

The show will be performed by puppetry and visual theatre company Smoking Apples at Woodstock's Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

A public show at 19:00 on Tuesday is open to all, while further showings are aimed at school and community group bookings.

The show features table-top puppetry and cinematic shadow play, as Babi tries to assemble the parts of her broken identity.

Jewish refugees fled to Britain before the outbreak of war in 1939 to escape persecution, coming from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

By 1939, Britain was home to over 60,000 Jewish refugees, 50,000 of whom settled permanently.

They were joined after 1945 by a smaller group of Jews who had survived the Holocaust in Europe.

Kindertransport helped 10,000 children to escape from Adolf Hitler's reign of terror in parts of Europe controlled by the Nazis.

The same term became used for the Czech and Slovak rescue of endangered children, which was organised in 1939 by Nicholas Winton, who lived in Maidenhead, Berkshire, with the help of Trevor Chadwick and other volunteers both in Prague and London.

Winton rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia, bringing them to the UK.

The show Kinder has been supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Enterprise Arts Trust.

It runs for up to one hour and is aimed at ages nine to 18.

Four shows will be performed at 13:00 and 19:00 on Tuesday and at 10:00 and 13:00 on Wednesday.