Kindertransport

Eva/Evelyn’s family jewelry symbolizes her relationship to her past. It also represents the conflict between her obligation to honor their past and her right to shape her future on her own terms. Before Helga Schlesinger sends her young daughter Eva to England to escape the Nazi persecution (and eventual extermination) of Jewish people during World War II, she shows Eva how she had the cobbler hide the Schlesinger family jewelry, including a gold pocket watch and a Star of David chain, in the hollowed-out heel of Eva’s shoe. Helga tells Eva that Helga’s grandfather described children as “jewels” in which “old ones invest [their] future.” Following her grandfather’s example, Helga is sending Eva away to England so that she might survive the war and so continue the family legacy in the likely event that Helga and the others who remain in Germany will perish. The jewelry, then, represents Helga’s hopes for Eva’s future as well as Eva’s responsibility to honor her family’s memory.

But as the war drags on, Eva assimilates into English culture, loses touch with Helga, and accepts her foster mother Lil as her new, true mother. Eva struggles to locate Helga after the war ends and eventually assumes that Helga has died and resolves to move forward with her life and deny Helga’s existence altogether. As this happens, the jewelry takes on new meaning for Eva. At one point, she pleads with Lil to help her sell it, explaining that the watch’s constant ticking is driving her crazy. This illustrates the jewelry’s transformed symbolism, Now, not only does the jewelry represent Evelyn’s ties to her family, but it also is nagging reminder of her failure to honor their memory—to ensure that Helga did not make her “investment,” so to speak, in vain.