"When Hitler stole the pink rabbit": Judith Kerr is dead | Books | '

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It was in the summer of 2017: Judith Kerr is a very English lady, first she asks for tea. And so I sat in front of her on a comfortable armchair in her London living room: a petite old lady in an elegant blue dress, with a pearl necklace, carefully combing white curls. Every five minutes an airplane rushed over us – here in the south of London, in the approach path of Heathrow Airport, Judith Kerr had lived for over half a century.

An inconspicuous neighbor

Here she lived together with her great love, her husband Nigel Kneale, the father of her two children – until his death in 2006. Son and daughter grew up here, in a typical English brick cottage with a neat front yard with rhododendron bushes and flowerbeds – just as cozy and unobtrusive as the neighboring houses.

Even as a child Judith Kerr loves to draw: drawing around 1932-38

That this was the home of a world-renowned best-selling author, whose books were translated into over 20 languages ​​and sold more than 10 million copies, was not seen.

She liked to write and draw children's books

For almost a year we tried to get an interview with Judith Kerr for our film special "After the Flight". Not so easy – because she prefers to write and draw children's books. And publishes one book after another: About a year after "A Seal for Mr. Albert" (2016), "Katinka's Tail" has been published in 2017. This again focuses on one of their own cats – as in the successful series with Kater Mog. Obviously, even when we visit a cat sweeps around his legs.

World-wide success: Judith Kerr's autobiographical novel trilogy

"When Hitler stole the pink rabbit"

However, Judith Kerr has made a novel world-famous in which cats play no role: "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit".

He tells how a little girl escapes from Germany with the Nazis in 1933 – it's Judith Kerr's own story. How much truth in the novel, I ask her. "Everything important was the same, I wrote it as honestly as I could," she replies. "If you write in the first person, then everything has to be exactly as it was – otherwise you will cheat."

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  A happy childhood

  Judith Kerr (right) grows sheltered in Berlin, her brother Michael is two years older. The children of the well-known theater critic Alfred Kerr have many freedoms. Her mother Julia is a pianist, and composes a lot at home. On the way to school, Judith often buys crayons and draws stories that she has experienced with her friends. She has little desire for arithmetic and reading.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Father Kerr speaks on the radio

  Alfred Kerr is a determined opponent of the National Socialists. From the spring of 1932 on every Monday he has his own radio program on German radio. The threats of the Nazis keep the parents secret from the children. At Christmas 1932 Judith and her brother are allowed to go to the cinema for the first time: "Emil and the detectives". The two children are unaware that they are at risk as a Jewish family.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Adolf Hitler and the Nazis come to power

  On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler (center), the "leader" of the NSDAP, appointed Chancellor. The political upheavals are taking off at a rapid pace. The Kerr family lives in Berlin-Grunewald, the children do not get the political changes directly. But they feel the restlessness of the parents. Later, Judith Kerr calls her youth novel "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit".

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  The last weeks in the imperial capital

  In February 1933, the father is in bed with a bad cold. The National Socialists have taken power, everywhere in Berlin are parades. Trade unionists and regime opponents are being harshly persecuted and initial waves of arrests start. Alfred Kerr is fortunately warned that his passport should be confiscated. On February 15, he flees at night in the last minute across the border to Prague.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Adventurous escape to Switzerland

  Judith and her brother say no dying word about the flight of the father. The mother secretly starts to pack suitcases, and Judith's children's drawings take them with her. The day before the Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933, they board the train to Switzerland, just in time. There they meet the father again. For the siblings the journey into exile seems more like a big adventure.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  The book burning 1933

  As a Jewish writer, Alfred Kerr has long been in the sights of the Nazis. On May 10, 1933, a public burning of books takes place in front of the Berlin Humbold University, organized by the "German Student Union". The books of Alfred Kerr are thrown into the fire by the hooting crowd, just like other emigrants: Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Erich Kästner, Franz Werfel.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Escape stations: Lugano, Zurich, Paris

  Judith is nine when her sheltered childhood is ended by fleeing abroad. The two siblings are now emigrant children, the family destitute. Everything that is dear and important to them must be left behind. "The piano was gone, the curtains, all the toys, even the pink rabbit," she writes later. In Paris, the Kerrs move to a furnished apartment after a long odyssey.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Emigrant life in poverty

  Like all Jewish emigres, the Nazis expropriated the Kerrs and confiscated their possessions. The family lives in exile in great poverty. Judith still likes being a refugee: "Paris was wonderful," she writes later. Father Kerr can hardly feed the family by writing. They have to leave Paris for want of money and end up in a shabby emigrant hotel in London in 1936.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Hard times of war in London

  On September 1, 1939, the Nazis broke the 2nd World War from the fence. After the bombing raids on London, the Kerrs are suddenly "friendly enemy aliens". The Jewish emigre family experiences a lot of solidarity from the British. "The people were so good to us, so brave, after all, we were Germans," recalls Judith Kerr, who develops patriotic feelings for her new hometown.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  New home Great Britain

  In 1946 Judith (right) started her studies at the Central School of Arts and Crafts thanks to a scholarship. Casual jobs as a drawing teacher and editing at the BBC allow her independence from her parents. At times, her mother works as an interpreter for the Americans, including the Nuremberg Trial. In 1947, Judith proudly holds a passport – as a British citizen.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Success with her children's books

  Judith Kerr writes children's books: 1968 appears "The Tiger Who came to Tea". Her husband Nigel Kneale, whom she met at the BBC, helps with the lyrics, the drawings are illustrated by Kerr by hand – only with colored pencils and erasers. 1970 follows "Mog The Forgetful Cat", both books huge successes. Until her old age, she sat at the drawing table and invented stories for children.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Million edition for a youth book

  Around the globe, Judith Kerr's children's books are read, children love their heartwarming stories. Her most famous book in Germany is "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit," a classic of emigrant literature – even for adults. As a trilogy, she tells the story of her refugee family. In 1974 she is awarded the "German Youth Book Prize".

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  At home in her book world

  Judith Kerr preferred to come to readings for children in Germany. She regularly visited her old hometown Berlin and introduced her latest book. In 2016 she was on a reading tour with the children's book "Ein Seehund für Herr Albert" (in English: Mister Cleghorn's Seal "), at the age of 93. The audience at the literature festival included many refugee children.

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  Children's book author Judith Kerr – Escape as an Adventure

  Drawing as an elixir of life

  Britain was her new home for more than 80 years. "I've become very happy in England," she told in 2017 in the charming German of her childhood in Berlin. In a TV interview for the ‘ documentary "After the Flight," she talked about her escape and her life as an emigrant in London. These memories remain alive in her books even after her death.

  Author / Author: Heike Mund

Sudden end to a happy childhood in Berlin-Grunewald

Judith Kerr was born on June 14, 1923 in Berlin. Her parents are Alfred Kerr, the most important theater critic of the Weimar Republic, and his wife Julia, born Weismann, a composer. Alfred Kerr is a determined opponent of Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist party in the early 1930s wins more and more supporters. He is also a Jew.

Judith Kerr with her father Alfred Kerr around 1931-34

When Hitler became Reich Chancellor in January 1933, Alfred Kerr flees to Prague. In March, Judith, her two-year-older brother Michael and her mother leave the beautiful house in the idyllic Berlin Grunewald in a night and fog campaign – just before the secret police tries to collect their passports. In Switzerland, they meet with the father.

"Chuchichäschtli" and again a move

Here Judith learns her first "foreign language": Schwyzerdütsch, Swiss German. "The other kids always checked me at school to see if I could do it." The exam was the word 'Chuchichäschtli' – kitchen cupboard. " But Switzerland remains only a stopover. Just as the children have become accustomed to the new environment, the next move is coming: Via France, in 1934, it goes to Paris, where many German refugees now live. Here, Alfred Kerr hopes for orders that have failed in Switzerland. Judith does not understand a word of French, but she bites her teeth, learning the language so fast that after only one year she passes the final exams in school.

"Is not it wonderful to be a refugee?"

Once, recalls Judith Kerr, she looks out over the rooftops of Paris with her father from the balcony of her small attic apartment – it's all the cheaper at the top. "And I should have said to my father: 'Is not it wonderful to be a refugee?'" Judith Kerr smiles. "That must have cheered him up, because it was incredibly difficult for my parents.

Even in Paris, the orders for the father are out. Judith Kerr's mother has thoughts of suicide

But they did it so that we did not notice very much of it. "She finds out that her mother is suicidal at the time and wants to take the children with her to death, as she sorted her parents' correspondence decades later." I saw that Date on the letter and thought: Since I had just learned French. That would have been really annoying if I had been killed just when I was French. "Fine, deep black British humor.

A home full of security – even on the run

Even when the next move follows in 1935, the parents manage to offer Judith and her brother a home full of security. This time it goes to London – again in the hope of an order for the father. Meanwhile, the saved is almost used up, the mother keeps the family afloat with odd jobs while the father writes in his room – lyrics that he almost never can sell. Judith is already proficient in learning languages. Soon the family speaks English with each other.

Judith (right) around 1935-1940 with mother Julia and brother Michael in London

"Enemy Alien" or English?

Then in 1939 the Second World War begins. Judith Kerr is 17 years old when the German Air Force bombards London. She works for the Red Cross and organizes the distribution of clothing for British soldiers. One day a call comes from Cambridge, where her brother studies law. He has been arrested and interned as "Enemy Alien" as an enemy alien. The fact that he had to flee from the Nazis as a Jew and was waiting to get British citizenship did not matter. Relationships succeed in getting Michael out of a camp on the Isle of Man. Immediately he announces himself as a pilot at the Royal Air Force and fights against the Germans.

During the Second World War, the Nazis bombarded Judith Kerr's new home in London

"At the end of the war, it was very clear to me that this is my home," says Judith Kerr. "But of course it was not for our parents, they never listened somewhere."

"When Hitler stole the pink rabbit": reading school in Germany

In her autobiographical youth novel trilogy (the "Pink Rabbit" is followed by two more volumes), Judith Kerr impressively describes what escape and new beginnings with a family do. She can only write about it after her parents' death: Alfred Kerr dies in 1948, her mother dies in 1965. Her son and daughter are about the same age as Judith and her brother when they left Germany in 1933. "And then I thought I would like to write a book for my children, as it was then." The "Pink Rabbit" appears in 1971 and becomes a worldwide success. In Germany, it is part of school reading, Oscar-winner Caroline Link has just re-filmed the book (planned theatrical release: December 2019).

The planes do not bother: Judith Kerr in the garden of her house in the south of London

The one hour her agent had given us for the interview had grown to almost two and a half. Judith Kerr was a wonderful narrator, we listened to her fascinated. She, too, seemed to have enjoyed telling us about her life. At the end we filmed her in the garden. Slightly bent, but with firm steps she walked across the lawn, lightly ascended the camera and sound cables that we had laid through her dining room. The airplanes were even louder outside, the cat hiding in the bushes. And we forgot to take a souvenir photo with her. When I thought about it, we had already stowed the camera equipment in the team car and waved Judith Kerr one last time. With her agent she had turned the corner and disappeared in a house escape. But even without a photo, the encounter with Judith Kerr will be vividly remembered.

You want to hear how moving Judith Kerr talks about her childhood?

Discover our multimedia online special "After the Flight" here.

Here you will find the TV documentary "After the Flight" on YouTube.

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