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Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. The title is a reference to the traditional German folk tale, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".
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Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. The title is a reference to the traditional German folk tale, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".
The story concerns a 70-year-old Englishman, John Sidney Howard, who goes on a fishing holiday in Jura, France partly to recover from grief at the loss of his son during the Battle of the Heligoland Bight. Although the Second World War has begun, he does not anticipate the speed with which the Nazi German forces invade France. His urgent desire to return home is delayed by a request made by an English couple he meets at the hotel. They ask him to take their two young children to England and safety. While delayed in Dijon by the sudden illness of one of the children, he accepts a request by one of the hotel maids to also take her young niece to safety in England where the child's father is working. Along the way, Howard accepts two more children: a boy whose parents were killed on the road by German aircraft, and a Dutch boy who is being attacked by panicking French villagers who mistake him for a German. Along the way he is overtaken by events and turns for help to some acquaintances in Chartres whom he barely knows, but remembers from a skiing holiday he took with his son, some years before.
Eventually, Howard and the children reach Brittany, hoping to escape Nazi-occupied France on a fishing boat. However, when one of the children is overheard speaking in English, the Nazis discover that Howard is an enemy Englishman and arrest him. He is accused of being a spy and threatened with death by the Gestapo, but in a final plot twist, the German commandant secretly allows Howard and the children to sail to England on the condition that they take his niece with them and send her to her uncle in the United States. His niece is apparently orphaned and had a "non-Aryan" mother.
The boat trip from France to England is successful and, ultimately, all the children are repatriated to the USA where they are cared for by Howard's daughter.
The tale is told in the form of a flashback by Howard to an acquaintance he meets in a London club during the Blitz.
The story was filmed in 1942 and again in a 1989 made-for-television film The Pied Piper , shown in 1990 by CBS in the US as Crossing to Freedom. Howard was played in the 1942 film by Monty Woolley and by Peter O'Toole in the 1989 film[ citation needed ].
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The Pied Piper is a 1942 American film in which an Englishman on vacation in France is caught up in the German invasion of that country, and finds himself taking an ever-growing group of children to safety. It stars Monty Woolley, Roddy McDowall and Anne Baxter. The film was adapted by Nunnally Johnson from the 1942 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute. It was directed by Irving Pichel.
The Children's Crusade was a failed popular crusade by European Christians to establish a second Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, said to have taken place in 1212. Although it is called the Children's Crusade, it never received the papal approval from Pope Innocent III to be an actual Crusade. The traditional narrative is likely conflated from a mix of factual and mythical events, which include the preaching of visions by a French boy and a German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery in Tunis. The crusaders of the real events on which the story is based left areas of Germany, led by Nicholas of Cologne, and Northern France, led by Stephen of Cloyes.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany.
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The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to defend individuals, especially children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk.
The Pied Piper is the title character of the traditional German folk tale the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
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Charles Howard Schmid Jr., also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, was an American serial killer whose crimes were detailed by journalist Don Moser in an article featured in the March 4, 1966, issue of Life magazine. Schmid's criminal career later formed the basis for "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. In 2008, The Library of America selected Moser's article for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime literature.
Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career.
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski was a German film actor.
Michael Boyer is an American actor who plays the role of the Pied Piper of Hamelin in performances in Hamelin, Germany. He lives in the town with his wife and son.
Most Secret is a novel by English writer Nevil Shute, written in 1942 but censored until 1945, when it was published by Heinemann. It is narrated by a commander in the Royal Navy, and tells the story of four officers who launch a daring mission at the time when Britain stood alone against Germany after the fall of France. Genevieve is a converted French fishing vessel, manned by four British officers and a small crew of Free French ex-fishermen, armed only with a flame thrower and small arms. Their task is as much psychological as military: to show the Germans that they will one day be beaten back.
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