| When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Judith Kerr |
| Country | Germany |
| Genre(s) | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Puffin Books |
| Publication date | 1971 |
| Pages | 192 |
| ISBN | 978-0142414088 |
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a children's novel, by Judith Kerr, first published in 1971. It is a semi-autobiographical story of a young Jewish girl who is forced to flee her home in Germany in 1933 with her family to escape the Nazis, whom her father, a writer, had campaigned against. The family escaped through Switzerland, spent some time in Paris, before finally arriving in England in 1936.
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 also fled their home in Berlin via Switzerland to escape to Paris and then England. She came to write the book when her own son was eight and after seeing The Sound of Music 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.[1] The book gives a distinctive child's perspective on the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany and the experience of being a refugee,[2] 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!'[3] | ” |
The book won the 1974 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. It is often used in German and British[2] 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.[2][3] It is an American Library Association Notable Book, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Horn Book Fanfare Title.[4]