When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

When Hitler stole pink rabbit is a novel by Judith Kerr, who in 1971 published in English ( Original title: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit). The children's and youth book with autobiographical character, was long a standard work for the classroom to introduce the topic origins of the Third Reich and refugee issues. In 1974, the novel was awarded the German Youth Literature Award as " outstanding children's book". Translated into German, it was by Annemarie Böll. By 2013, 1.3 million copies of the book were sold in Germany.

The novel is the first in a trilogy, during which Anna, from whose perspective the story is told, grows into an adult woman. The trilogy begins in 1933 and ends in the 1950s. The titles of the sequels are: wait until peace comes and a kind of family reunion.

Summary

From Berlin to Zurich

The novel begins in the time before the general election in March 1933. Anna is nine years old and lives with her Jewish family in Berlin. Anna's father is a well known writer who also published articles against Hitler and the Nazi Party in newspapers and magazines. Fearing a rise of Hitler and a concomitant arrest, he fled, warned by a police officer, to Prague. In contrast, remains Uncle Julius, a family friend, in Berlin.

A few days later, on the weekend of choice, traveling Anna, her mother and her twelve- year-old brother Max to Switzerland, where they meet in Zurich on Anna's father. Of necessity, they remain after Hitler's election victory and the confiscation of their property - including Anna's pink plush rabbit that she left behind in Berlin - in Switzerland. They live only in one of the best hotels in Zurich, but when money gets tight, they live in an inn in the family thread that has three children: Francis, Trudi and Vreneli. Here get Anna and Max for the first time to feel the anti -Semitic attitude of compatriots: the children of a family vacationers from Munich is forbidden to play with them or talk, after which the children of the host must take sides.

Due to the burning of books, from the books of the father are concerned, and due to the fact that the Swiss newspapers are primarily interested in their neutrality, it becomes increasingly difficult for Anna's father to publish his articles and earn money. Also, the fact that the Nazis put a price on the adoption of Anna's father, makes the family's life any easier. Short of money, the family moved to Paris, where the father sees better opportunities for themselves and their families.

Next to Paris and London

In France arrived, the family has to face the problems of a refugee family: language problems, problems of integration and also the problem of tight money. Article of the Father in the Paris newspaper provide only a meager income. With anti-Semitism, the family is confronted not in France, but especially as the host country of an economic crisis, the financial worries are getting bigger, is beset. More important than the financial position of the father, however, is the freedom - in Paris, he learns that his old friend Julius in Berlin after numerous harassment has taken his own life - and for Anna matters is that the family is not separated.

The mother, however, on the economic worries weigh especially urges to a move to England. After a humiliating scene in which the concierge contemptuously talks about the family who can pay their rental apartment not quite on time, it demands a decision. At Anna's dismay decide the parents to place their children for the period of transition at the grandparents also emigrated in southern France. But before this decision can be put into action, arrives the news that a British company wants and getting paid him 1,000 pounds to buy a movie manuscript of the Father. Then can travel together to London the whole family. Arrived in London, welcomed cousin Otto Anna and the other family members to Victoria Station.

Filming

When Hitler stole pink rabbit was in 1978 by the WDR for ARD under the direction of Ilse Hofmann - partly on location - filmed. The first broadcast took place on 25 December 1978. Starring Martin Benrath and Elisabeth Trissenaar played the parents and Ariane Jessulat and Alexander Rosenberg children Anna and Max

Biographical references

Judith Kerr has taken her own family constellation quite accurate; from her brother Michael was Max, behind the famous father, Alfred Kerr hides and in Berlin still making music and untouched by fiscal and monetary worries mother has distinct resemblance to her archetype Julia Weismann. As a side figures appear a great-aunt Sarah, who lives as a widow in Paris, and the maternal grandmother on. About the grandfather is only said that he is not famous in contrast to the father of the family and therefore unhindered could emigrate with all his possessions. The reality may have been different for Robert Weismann. Behind the Hungarian director who pushes the purchase of the script about Napoleon's mother in England, Alexander Korda hides. The archetype of Uncle Julius is the Oscar Wilde translator Max Meyer field.