When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

…

Berlin, early 1933: The Nazis are on the verge of their projected election victory, the Reichstag is burning, and mass madness is shown everywhere. Then a phone call! Her father leaves Berlin the next day shortly afterward the girl Anna travels to Switzerland with her family.

Her father, a well-known critical Jewish journalist, is unable to gain a foothold there and so six months later the family leaves Switzerland and they travel to Paris.

Since their escape, the family in exile has to live in unusually poor conditions. Much of what was part of their everyday life was left behind in Berlin – including Anna’s oldest stuffed animal, THE PINK RABBIT. Paris, which looked like the perfect place to live at first, is hard on the family. The little bit of money they make isn’t enough for all their needs. They sit in the dark when the landlord bangs on the door, demanding rent. She is not friendly and dislikes Jews. Then, a few days later, when the father gets an offer to write a screenplay about the childhood of Napoleon Bonaparte, they leave France behind. On the ferry, they look toward a better future, far from home. Finally, more favorable working conditions are emerging in London and the family can breathe a sigh of relief for the time being.

This book is not the typical Nazi story or the account of a Jewish family in hiding, but the true story of Anna, the youngest of a Jewish German family who had to leave everything behind. The book is not about Hitler or the Nazi regime or Word War II, but the story of people who had to flee the country they loved, to stay alive and together.

What makes it remarkable is how child-friendly, undramatic, and neutral the parents explain to the two children what is happening in their home country, and why they have to behave like this and are not allowed to say some things.

They don’t play games and they don’t lie to their kids.

The book is told from Anna’s view who celebrates her 10th birthday in Paris.

Anna, and her brother, who don’t speak French, adjust to the land and the people, and after just one year, they speak the language, just like they had adjusted to Switzerland and the funny kind of German they speak there.

The customs and traditions in the new country are interesting to read about. Back then times were different, gender discrimination in “mixed” classes, still existed at that time. It was not appropriate for girls to play with boys in the schoolyard.

Or why you are tested in a completely meaningless school subject – because if you pass there, you can make up for other general or less general education subjects in which you did not pass. (This was also part of my own childhood in Austria and Germany, and one of the reasons why I attended the stenography class).

Switzerland, in the book and in real life back then, is too cowardly to publish what was written by “a sworn opponent of the Nazis”. “Swiss neutrality goes too far at the moment when children are drawn into politics. Here Anna wonders “What would he (another child who was forbidden to have contact with her) be like when he grew up?”

German children with their parents sitting in the same dining room on vacation in Switzerland are not talking to the German Jews. However, the son finds a way to make them speechless by simply following advice, given to him by his father.

It is remarkably sweet how some things are described. For example, a reward is set far too low, because “One would think that I am worth a lot more”. As a 10-year-old, Anna wants to protect her father from recurring nightmares, from which he wakes up screaming and she notices it in the next room, by simply dreaming them (and getting annoyed that she can’t fall asleep to do that).

They are refugees, they can’t find their own 100% home anywhere. But Anna doesn’t care about it, she doesn’t want to prepare for emigration separated from the other family members and she sees it quite pragmatically. “You have each other when you have nothing else. Hold on to each other and with each other,” a simple, but powerful message coming from such a young child.

“You can only write well if you try to please yourself,” the father comforts the little daughter, who dreams of creating only gloomy poems with appropriate illustrations. That’s exactly how it is with every self-created work for which Anna will be rewarded one day.

As the child of an already famous father, she could also become famous but only if she had a “difficult childhood” and Anna sometimes questions whether this is the case. Her answer to this is hopeful in the end.

My verdict: Faszinating! So different from what I expected. A page-turner. A book that makes you think and keeps you thinking after you put it away. It’s good and quick to read, without the moral index finger or precociousness. The character of Anna is a child and you believe her. A quiet, very wonderfully told work. Oppressive, touching, deeply sad, joyful as well. What a book!

I finished it last night!

And now you think I gave too much away. No, I didn’t. There is still so much to read and feel while turning page after page.

WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT is semi-autobiographical as it is based on the true life story of author Judith Kerr. Her family fled Germany just before Hitler came to power because her father was a well-known writer, and had been openly criticizing the Nazis.

Daily writing prompt

What book are you reading right now?

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