BBC Radio 4 LW

This Is Your Country Now Too

This Is Your Country Now, Too: Gustav and Franziska

Gustav and Franziska

This Is Your Country Now, Too

BBC Radio 4 - This Is Your Country Now, Too, Gustav and Franziska

Stories seen through the eyes of child refugees as they leave home for the unknown.

Two Jewish children escape the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 helped by the persistence of a young British schoolteacher. Starring Damian Lewis.

Stories seen through the eyes of child refugees as they leave home for the unknown. Starring Damian Lewis.

In the days after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, a Jewish family is faced with a terrible dilemma - save their two children, nine-year-old Gustav and his elder sister Franziska, but maybe never see them again.

When they hear of a scheme to get children to London on trains, their mother determines it's the only way. This Kindertransport scheme, devised by Nicholas Winton, is left in the hands of two young schoolteachers, Trevor Chadwick and Beatrice Wellington his Canadian assistant. 

With more than a little naivety and dogged persistence, amid the chaos of a new Nazi administration, this little-known story of Chadwick’s part in the saving of 700 Czechoslovakian children who otherwise would have suffered the fate of their parents, is the first of seven dramas in a series about the experience of child refugees since 1939.

Cast:
Trevor Chadwick ….. Damian Lewis
Mama ….. Susannah Wise
Papa ….. Allan Corduner
Gustav ….. Hector Bateman-Harden
Franziska ….. Sophia Pettit
Nicholas Winton ….. David Michaels
Beatrice Wellington ….. Christy Meyer
Bömelberg ….. Mark Edel-Hunt
Alfred Dubs ..... Tom Hibberd
Other parts played by the company

Written by Jonathan Myerson
Series devised by Nicolas Kent with Jack Bradley

Original Music: Jack Newton
Directors: Jonathan Myerson and Nicolas Kent
Producer: Nicholas Newton
A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Drama

Seven stories seen through the eyes of child refugees as they leave home for the unknown.

Seven stories seen through the eyes of children. What it is to be a child refugee: the peril, the decision to flee and the obstacles facing them as they leave home for the unknown.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

This Is Your Country Now, Too

Gustav and Franziska

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4