TARA BRADY previews a production of Renya, The Cobbler's Daughter.

A MUSICAL based on the true story of a romance between a survivor of the Holocaust and a British soldier is taking to the stage in Harrow.

Harrow Arts Centre launches its spring season with an adaptation of Michael Shocket's book, Renya, The Cobbler's Daughter.

Taken from Mr Shocket's autobiography, Know Me Tomorrow, the play tells the touching story of how he met and fell in love with his wife Irène while serving in the liberation army in Brussels.

Speaking from his home in Rickmansworth, Mr Shocket, now 86, said: "I was serving in the Intelligence Corps during the Second World War and found myself in Brussels in 1944.

"It had been liberated from German occupation and everywhere people were singing and dancing.

"It was there I met Irène and I fell madly in love with her. It was love at first sight."

Irène, known as Renya, was the daughter of a Jewish shoemaker from Poland.

Three of her four sisters were forced to hide from the Nazis in a convent and were brought up as Catholics.

The emotional story tells how one of her sisters, her husband and unborn baby perished in Auschwitz.

It also recounts how Irène avoided being deported and how the family survived the Holocaust. Mr Shocket said: "Irène was one of five sisters. She was beautiful with strawberry blonde hair - just like her mother. The pair would have to fetch food for the rest of the family because they were fair and the Germans left them alone.

"She lost her eldest sister who was sent to the gas chambers and she managed to escape being sent herself.

"Irène then took refuge at a Catholic convent with some other Jewish girls. It is an emotional story and, in parts, tragic, but it is a story of survival and there is a light at the end."

Irène survived the Holocaust and left Brussels for England with Mr Shocket, where they married in 1947, and subsequently had three children.

This breathtaking journey of tragedy and bravery is narrated by Mr Shocket, and in keeping with the spirit of the book, he promises that the audience will leave with a resonating sense of hope.

The retired teacher said: "Irène was a wonderful person and kept her beauty into her age.

"This is a love story. The music is beautiful, the singing is beautiful and it should be very entertaining."

The pensioner's love for his late wife, who died in 2002, led to Mr Shocket winning a national writing competition in 2010, with a poem written about him meeting Irène, called December Song.

Retelling the poignant story for the stage, Mr Shocket teamed up with relative Dudley Cohen, a music director, who produced the score. **The show is on Sunday, February 13 at 7.30pm.

Tickets, costing £12 full price or £10 for concessions, are available online via www.harrowarts.com or from the box office, on 020 8416 8989.