 Cover of the E-book trilogy set incorporating the adult covers of the separate books | |
| |
| Author | Judith Kerr |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novels |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Published | 1971–1978 [1] |
| Media type | |
| No. of books | 3 |
| OCLC | 51082577 |
Out of the Hitler Time is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Judith Kerr for children and young adults.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is the first book in the trilogy and a well-known novel for children. [2]
It is based upon the early life of the author whose Jewish father, noted drama critic, journalist and screenwriter Alfred Kerr, was wanted by the Nazis. Kerr's family fled their home in Berlin via Switzerland to escape to Paris and then England. [2] She came to write the book when her own son was eight; after seeing The Sound of Music he remarked, "Now we know what it was like when Mummy was a little girl". Kerr wanted him to know what it was really like and so wrote When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. [3] The book gives a distinctive child's perspective on the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany and the experience of being a refugee, [4] reflecting Kerr's positive feelings about her own experience:
My parents were wonderful. My brother Michael and I knew there wasn't much money but it didn't seem to matter much. They made us feel it was an adventure. I much preferred it to the sort of childhood I would have had had we had a so-called normal childhood. When we were in Paris we had this grotty, tiny flat and were looking out over Paris and I said to my father, 'Isn't it wonderful being a refugee!' [5]
The story starts in Berlin, in March 1933, when nine-year-old Anna, the main character in the trilogy, finds out one morning that her father is missing. She and her brother, Max, discover that Papa thinks that Adolf Hitler might win the elections, and has fled to Prague. Because the family is of Jewish heritage, and Papa is also a well-known critic of the Nazis, this is important. If Hitler wins the elections, Mama, Max and Anna will join Papa in Switzerland. If Hitler loses, then Papa will come back home to Berlin. However the parents decide not to wait until after the elections and Mama and the children rushed into Switzerland in alarming secrecy. It is at this time that Anna has to choose which toy she wishes to take with her. She opts to take her new woolly dog, and leave behind her pink rabbit toy, believing she will return to Berlin after a short time. It is from this that the title is derived as she considers that Hitler and the Nazis have "stolen" her toy. [2] In Switzerland, they settle in a gasthof on the shore of Lake Zurich, and the family stay there for six months. Soon, however, Papa thinks that they should move to Paris, and goes there to find out about accommodation. He comes back and wants Mama to come back with him as a prospective buyer. So Max and Anna are left on their own for a little while.
The Nazis find out about Papa as he travels, and a price of one thousand marks is put on his head. This really scares Anna and she is afraid that it means that Papa will be put in a room with one thousand coins being dropped onto his head, suffocating him. She goes on believing this until Max tells her what it really means. When Papa soon comes back to collect them (Mama stays in Paris to settle into the apartment they have rented), a porter directed them to the wrong train, one that will send them back to Germany, where Papa would have been imprisoned by the Nazis. Fortunately, though, Anna notices the destination label just in time, and they manage to get their luggage back and onto the correct train to Paris. There, Max attends a boys' school, and it takes a long time but Mama finally finds an elementary school for Anna. Anna finds French hard for a little while, but one day it clicks and she finds herself able to speak it fluently. In 1936, after two years in Paris, the family decides to move again, this time to London, as Papa thinks the BBC might buy a biographical film script on Napoleon's mother, inspired by a talk he had with the children. The story ends as Mama, Papa, Max and Anna get off the train in England, to be greeted by Mama's cousin, Otto.
Bombs on Aunt Dainty, which was originally published as The Other Way Round in 1975, [1] is about Anna and her family's life in London during World War II.
Anna lives with the fear of bombs while Max is away studying at Cambridge University. The final scenes take place on VE Day.
A Small Person Far Away is the third part in the trilogy, published in 1978.
The book is set in 1956, coinciding with the Hungarian Revolution. Anna lives in Kensington with her husband Richard, a scriptwriter for the BBC, [6] but must return to West Berlin where her mother lives amidst the Cold War. Towards the end of the book Anna becomes pregnant.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit won the 1974 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. It is often used in German and British [4] schools as an introduction to the period in history and the experience of being a refugee. The book has been used as part of the Judith Kerr collection at the Seven Stories Centre for Children's Books, in Newcastle. [4] [5] It is an American Library Association Notable Book, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Horn Book Fanfare Title. [7]
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit was adapted by the German TV channel WDR as the television film Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl, directed by Ilse Hofmann , starring Martin Benrath and Elisabeth Trissenaar. [8]
A cinematic adaptation of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit premiered in December 2019 in Germany, directed by Oscar-winning director Caroline Link. Carla Juri and Oliver Masucci portray the parents. [9]
In May 2021, it was announced that a stage musical adaptation of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is in development at The Old Vic, London, with a book and lyrics by Caroline Bird and music and lyrics by Miranda Cooper and Nick Coler. Further information is to be confirmed.
Lion Feuchtwanger was a Bavarian Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
The Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised and encouraged by the British government. Importantly the British government waived all those visa immigration requirements which were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government put no number limit on the programme – it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the United Kingdom.
Anna Judith Gertrud Helene Kerr was a German-born British writer and illustrator whose books sold more than 10 million copies around the world. She created both enduring picture books such as the Mog series and The Tiger Who Came to Tea and acclaimed novels for older children such as the semi-autobiographical When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which gave a child's-eye view of the Second World War. Born in the Weimar Republic and a Jew, she came to Britain with her family in 1935 during the rise of the Nazis.
Alfred Kerr was an influential German theatre critic and essayist of Jewish descent, nicknamed the Kulturpapst.
Salka Viertel was an Austrian Jewish actress and Hollywood screenwriter. While under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937, Viertel co-wrote the scripts for many movies, particularly those starring her close friend Greta Garbo, including Queen Christina (1933) and Anna Karenina (1935). She also played opposite Garbo in MGM's German-language version of Anna Christie in 1930.
Sir Michael Robert Emanuel Kerr was a German-born British jurist, author lawyer and high court judge. He had been told, he said, that he was England's first "foreign-born judge" in eight hundred years, though he himself was careful neither to confirm nor refute the suggestion.
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears is a 1944 Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Chuck Jones and written by Tedd Pierce. The short was released on February 26, 1944, and features Bugs Bunny. This short marks the first appearance of Jones' dysfunctional version of The Three Bears, and is a parody of the old fairy tale, Goldilocks and The Three Bears.
The Book Thief is a historical novel by the Australian author Markus Zusak, and is one of his most popular works.
The Kindly Ones is a 2006 historical fiction novel written in French by American-born author Jonathan Littell. The book is narrated by its fictional protagonist Maximilien Aue, a former SS officer of French and German ancestry who was a Holocaust perpetrator and was present during several major events of World War II.
The Tiger Who Came to Tea is a short children's story, first published by HarperCollins in 1968, written and illustrated by Judith Kerr. The book concerns a girl called Sophie, her mother, and an anthropomorphised tiger who invites himself to their afternoon tea and consumes all the food and drink they have. The book remains extremely popular more than 50 years after it was first published, and a theatrical adaptation of the story has been produced. A television adaptation of the book aired on UK's Channel 4 on Christmas Eve 2019 at 7:30pm GMT.
Ilka Grüning was an Austrian-Hungarian actress. Born in Vienna in the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire, she was one of many Jewish actors and actresses that were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933. A respected and famous actress in Germany, she was forced to play bit parts in Hollywood.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a historical fiction book written and illustrated by Brian Selznick and published by Scholastic. It takes place in France as a young boy finds his purpose. The hardcover edition was released on January 30, 2007, and the paperback edition was released on June 2, 2008. With 284 pictures between the book's 533 pages, the book depends as much on its pictures as it does on the words. Selznick himself has described the book as "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things". The book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal, the first novel to do so, as the Caldecott Medal is for picture books.
Hitler's Children is a 1943 American black-and-white propaganda film made by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by the Canadian-American director, Edward Dmytryk, from an adaptation by Emmet Lavery of Gregor Ziemer's book Education for Death.
The Morning Gift is a bestselling novel by the English author Eva Ibbotson, based on her own experience as a refugee.
Hilde Meisel was a Jewish German socialist and journalist who published articles against the Nazi regime in Germany. While in exile in England, she wrote under the pseudonym Hilda Monte, calling for German resistance to Nazism in magazines, books and in radio broadcasts. She acted as a courier and repeatedly undertook secret operations in Germany, Austria, France and Portugal, although as a social democrat and Jew, it was extremely dangerous for her to do so. Other code names she used in exile were Hilde Olday, Selma Trier, Helen Harriman, Eva Schneider, H. Monte, Hilda Monte and Hilde Monte.
Elisabeth Trissenaar is an Austrian actress, who lives in Berlin.
Jojo Rabbit is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Taika Waititi, adapted from Christine Leunens's 2008 book Caging Skies. Roman Griffin Davis portrays the title character, Johannes "Jojo" Betzler, a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member who finds out that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their attic. He must then question his beliefs while dealing with the intervention of his imaginary friend (Waititi), a fanciful version of Adolf Hitler with a comedic stance on the politics of the war. The film also stars Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant and Alfie Allen.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a 2019 German family film directed by Caroline Link. It is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Judith Kerr.
Julia Kerr was a German composer and pianist. As a composer she used the name Julia Kerwey. She also worked as a translator during the Nuremberg trials.