When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

First published in Great Britain by William Collins and Sons and Co. Ltd in 1971

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

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Text and illustrations copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1971

Note from the author copyright © Judith Kerr 2008

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Cover illustration © Judith Kerr 2017

Judith Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007274772

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007380466

Version: 2017-06-15

For my parents

Julia and Alfred Kerr

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Note from the Author

Keep Reading

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Anna was walking home from school with Elsbeth, a girl in her class. A lot of snow had fallen in Berlin that winter. It did not melt, so the street cleaners had swept it to the edge of the pavement, and there it had lain for weeks in sad, greying heaps. Now, in February, the snow had turned into slush and there were puddles everywhere. Anna and Elsbeth skipped over them in their lace-up boots.

They both wore thick coats and woollen caps which kept their ears warm, and Anna had a muffler as well. She was nine but small for her age and the ends of the muffler hung down almost to her knees. It also covered up her mouth and nose, so the only parts of her that showed were her green eyes and a tuft of dark hair. She had been hurrying because she wanted to buy some crayons at the paper shop and it was nearly time for lunch. But now she was so out of breath that she was glad when Elsbeth stopped to look at a large red poster.

‘It’s another picture of that man,’ said Elsbeth. ‘My little sister saw one yesterday and thought it was Charlie Chaplin.’

Anna looked at the staring eyes, the grim expression. She said, ‘It’s not a bit like Charlie Chaplin except for the moustache.’

They spelled out the name under the photograph.

Adolf Hitler.

‘He wants everybody to vote for him in the elections and then he’s going to stop the Jews,’ said Elsbeth. ‘Do you think he’s going to stop Rachel Lowenstein?’

‘Nobody can stop Rachel Lowenstein,’ said Anna. ‘She’s form captain. Perhaps he’ll stop me. I’m Jewish too.’

‘You’re not!’

‘I am! My father was talking to us about it only last week. He said we were Jews and no matter what happened my brother and I must never forget it.’

‘But you don’t go to a special church on Saturdays like Rachel Lowenstein.’

‘That’s because we’re not religious. We don’t go to church at all.’

‘I wish my father wasn’t religious,’ said Elsbeth. ‘We have to go every Sunday and I get cramp in my seat.’ She looked at Anna curiously. ‘I thought Jews were supposed to have bent noses, but your nose is quite ordinary. Has your brother got a bent nose?’

‘No,’ said Anna. ‘The only person in our house with a bent nose is Bertha the maid, and hers only got like that because she broke it falling off a tram.’

Elsbeth was getting annoyed. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘if you look the same as everyone else and you don’t go to a special church, how do you know you are Jewish? How can you be sure?’

There was a pause.

‘I suppose …’ said Anna, ‘I suppose it’s because my mother and father are Jews, and I suppose their mothers and fathers were too. I never thought about it much until Papa started talking about it last week.’

‘Well, I think it’s silly!’ said Elsbeth. ‘It’s silly about Adolf Hitler and people being Jews and everything!’ She started to run and Anna followed her.

They did not stop until they reached the paper shop. There was someone talking to the man at the counter and Anna’s heart sank as she recognised Fräulein Lambeck who lived nearby. Fräulein Lambeck was making a face like a sheep and saying, ‘Terrible times! Terrible times!’ Each time she said ‘terrible times’ she shook her head and her earrings wobbled.

The paper shop man said, ‘1931 was bad enough, 1932 was worse, but mark my words, 1933 will be worst of all.’ Then he saw Anna and Elsbeth and said, ‘What can I do for you, my dears?’

Anna was just going to tell him that she wanted to buy some crayons when Fräulein Lambeck spied her.

‘It’s little Anna!’ cried Fräulein Lambeck. ‘How are you, little Anna? And how is your dear father? Such a wonderful man! I read every word he writes. I’ve got all his books and I always listen to him on the radio. But he hasn’t written anything in the paper this week – I do hope he’s quite well. Perhaps he’s lecturing somewhere. Oh, we do need him in these terrible, terrible times!’

Anna waited until Fräulein Lambeck had finished. Then she said, ‘He’s got ’flu.’

This provoked another outburst. You would have thought that Fräulein Lambeck’s nearest and dearest were lying at death’s door. She shook her head until the earrings rattled. She suggested remedies. She recommended doctors. She would not stop talking until Anna had promised to give her father Fräulein Lambeck’s best wishes for a speedy recovery. And then she turned back in the doorway and said, ‘Don’t say best wishes from Fräulein Lambeck, little Anna – just say from an admirer!’ – before she finally swept out.

Anna bought her crayons quickly. Then she and Elsbeth stood together in the cold wind outside the paper shop. This was where their ways normally parted, but Elsbeth lingered. There was something she had wanted to ask Anna for a long time and it seemed a good moment.

‘Anna,’ said Elsbeth, ‘is it nice having a famous father?’

‘Not when you meet someone like Fräulein Lambeck,’ said Anna, absent-mindedly setting off for home while Elsbeth equally absent-mindedly followed her.

‘No, but apart from Fräulein Lambeck?’

‘I think it’s quite nice. For one thing Papa works at home, so we see quite a lot of him. And sometimes we get free theatre tickets. And once we were interviewed by a newspaper, and they asked us what books we liked, and my brother said Zane Grey and the next day someone sent him a whole set as a present!’

‘I wish my father was famous,’ said Elsbeth. ‘But I don’t think he ever will be because he works in the Post Office, and that’s not the sort of thing people get famous for.’

‘If your father doesn’t become famous perhaps you will. One snag about having a famous father is that you almost never become famous yourself.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. But you hardly ever hear of two famous people in the same family. It makes me rather sad sometimes.’ Anna sighed.

By this time they were standing outside Anna’s white-painted gate. Elsbeth was feverishly trying to think of something she might become famous for when Heimpi, who had seen them from the window, opened the front door.

‘Goodness!’ cried Elsbeth, ‘I’ll be late for lunch!’ – and she rushed off up the street.

‘You and that Elsbeth,’ grumbled Heimpi as Anna went inside. ‘You’d talk the monkeys off the trees!’

Heimpi’s real name was Fräulein Heimpel and she had looked after Anna and her brother Max since they were babies. Now that they were older she did the house-keeping while they were at school, but she liked to fuss over them when they came back. ‘Let’s have all this off you,’ she said, unwinding the muffler. ‘You look like a parcel with the string undone.’ As Heimpi peeled the clothes off her Anna could hear the piano being played in the drawing room. So Mama was home.

‘Are you sure your feet aren’t wet?’ said Heimpi. ‘Then go quickly and wash your hands. Lunch is nearly ready.’

Anna climbed up the thickly carpeted stairs. The sun was shining through the window and outside in the garden she could see a few last patches of snow. The smell of chicken drifted up from the kitchen. It was nice coming home from school.

As she opened the bathroom door there was a scuffle inside and she found herself staring straight at her brother Max, his face scarlet under his fair hair, his hands hiding something behind his back.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, even before she caught sight of his friend Gunther who seemed equally embarrassed.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Max, and Gunther laughed. ‘We thought it was a grown-up!’

‘What have you got?’ asked Anna.

‘It’s a badge. There was a big fight at school today – Nazis against Sozis.’

‘What are Nazis and Sozis?’

‘I’d have thought even you would know that at your age,’ said Max, who was just twelve. ‘The Nazis are the people who are going to vote for Hitler in the elections. We Sozis are the people who are going to vote against.’

‘But you’re none of you allowed to vote,’ said Anna. ‘You’re too young!’

‘Our fathers, then,’ said Max crossly. ‘It’s the same thing.’

‘Anyway, we beat them,’ said Gunther. ‘You should have seen those Nazis run! Max and I caught one of them and got his badge off him. But I don’t know what my mum is going to say about my trousers.’ He looked dolefully down at a large tear in the worn cloth. Gunther’s father was out of work and there was no money at home for new clothes.

‘Don’t worry, Heimpi will fix it,’ said Anna. ‘Can I see the badge?’

It was a small piece of red enamel with a black hooked cross on it.

‘It’s called a swastika,’ said Gunther. ‘All the Nazis have them.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

Max and Gunther looked at each other.

‘D’you want it?’ asked Max.

Gunther shook his head. ‘I’m not supposed to have anything to do with the Nazis. My mum’s afraid I might get my head cut open.’

‘They don’t fight fair,’ agreed Max. ‘They use sticks and stones and everything.’ He turned the badge over with increasing dislike. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want it.’

‘Put it down the what-not!’ said Gunther. So they did. The first time they pulled the chain it would not flush away, but the second time, just as the gong went for lunch, it disappeared very satisfactorily.

They could still hear the piano as they went downstairs but it stopped while Heimpi was filling their plates and a moment later the door burst open and Mama came in.

‘Hello, children, hello, Gunther,’ she cried, ‘how was school?’

Everybody immediately began to tell her and the room was suddenly filled with noise and laughter. She knew the names of all their teachers and always remembered what they had told her. So when Max and Gunther talked about how the geography master had flown into a rage she said, ‘No wonder, after the way you all played him up last week!’ And when Anna told her that her essay had been read out in class she said, ‘That’s marvellous – because Fräulein Schmidt hardly ever reads anything out, does she?’

When she listened she looked at whoever was talking with the utmost concentration. When she talked all her energy went into it. She seemed to do everything twice as hard as other people – even her eyes were a brighter blue than any Anna had ever seen.

They were just starting on the pudding (which was apple strudel) when Bertha the maid came in to tell Mama that there was someone on the telephone, and should she disturb Papa?

‘What a time to ring up!’ cried Mama and pushed her chair back so hard that Heimpi had to put out her hand to stop it falling over. ‘Don’t any of you dare eat my apple strudel!’ And she rushed out.

It seemed very quiet after she had gone, though Anna could hear her footsteps hurrying to the telephone and, a little later, hurrying even faster up the stairs to Papa’s room. In the silence she asked, ‘How is Papa?’

‘Feeling better,’ said Heimpi. ‘His temperature is down a bit.’

Anna ate her pudding contentedly. Max and Gunther got through three helpings but still Mama had not come back. It was odd because she was particularly fond of apple strudel.

Bertha came to clear away and Heimpi took the boys off to see to Gunther’s trousers. ‘No use mending these,’ she said, ‘they’d split again as soon as you breathed. But I’ve got an outgrown pair of Max’s that will just do you nicely.’

Anna was left in the dining room wondering what to do. For a while she helped Bertha. They put the used plates through the hatch into the pantry. Then they brushed the crumbs off the table with a little brush and pan. Then, while they were folding the tablecloth, she remembered Fräulein Lambeck and her message. She waited until Bertha had the tablecloth safely in her hands and ran up to Papa’s room. She could hear Papa and Mama talking inside.

‘Papa,’ said Anna as she opened the door, ‘I met Fräulein Lambeck …’

‘Not now! Not now!’ cried Mama. ‘We’re talking!’ She was sitting on the edge of Papa’s bed. Papa was propped up against the pillows looking rather pale. They were both frowning.

‘But Papa, she asked me to tell you …’

Mama got quite angry.

‘For goodness’ sake, Anna,’ she shouted, ‘we don’t want to hear about it now! Go away!’

‘Come back a little later,’ said Papa more gently. Anna shut the door. So much for that! It wasn’t as though she’d ever wanted to deliver Fräulein Lambeck’s silly message in the first place. But she felt put out.

There was no one in the nursery. She could hear shouts outside, so Max and Gunther were probably playing in the garden, but she did not feel like joining them. Her satchel was hanging on the back of a chair. She unpacked her new crayons and took them all out of their box. There was a good pink and quite a good orange, but the blues were best. There were three different shades, all beautifully bright, and a purple as well. Suddenly Anna had an idea.

Lately she had been producing a number of illustrated poems which had been much admired both at home and at school. There had been one about a fire, one about an earthquake and one about a man who died in dreadful agonies after being cursed by a tramp. Why not try her hand at a shipwreck? All sorts of words rhymed with sea and there was ‘save’ to rhyme with ‘wave’, and she could use the three new blue crayons for the illustration. She found some paper and began.

Soon she was so absorbed that she did not notice the early winter dusk creeping into the room, and she was startled when Heimpi came in and switched on the light.

‘I’ve made some cakes,’ said Heimpi. ‘Do you want to help with the icing?’

‘Can I just quickly show this to Papa?’ asked Anna as she filled in the last bit of blue sea. Heimpi nodded.

This time Anna knocked and waited until Papa called, ‘Come in’. His room looked strange because only the bedside lamp was lit and Papa and his bed made an island of light among the shadows. She could dimly see his desk with the typewriter and the mass of papers which had, as usual, overflowed from the desk on to the floor. Because Papa often wrote late at night and did not want to disturb Mama his bed was in his workroom.

Papa himself did not look like someone who was feeling better. He was sitting up doing nothing at all, just staring in front of him with a kind of tight look on his thin face, but when he saw Anna he smiled. She showed him the poem and he read it through twice and said it was very good, and he also admired the illustration. Then Anna told him about Fräulein Lambeck and they both laughed. He was looking more like himself, so Anna said, ‘Papa, do you really like the poem?’

Papa said he did.

‘You don’t think it should be more cheerful?’

‘Well,’ said Papa, ‘a shipwreck is not really a thing you can be very cheerful about.’

‘My teacher Fräulein Schmidt thinks I should write about more cheerful subjects like the spring and the flowers.’

‘And do you want to write about the spring and the flowers?’

‘No,’ said Anna sadly. ‘Right now all I seem to be able to do is disasters.’

Papa gave a little sideways smile and said perhaps she was in tune with the times.

‘Do you think then,’ asked Anna anxiously, ‘that disasters are all right to write about?’ Papa became serious at once.

‘Of course!’ he said. ‘If you want to write about disasters, that’s what you must do. It’s no use trying to write what other people want. The only way to write anything good is to try to please yourself.’

Anna was so encouraged to hear this that she was just going to ask Papa whether by any chance Papa thought she might become famous one day, but the telephone by Papa’s bed rang loudly and surprised them both.

The tight look was back on Papa’s face as he lifted the receiver and it was odd, thought Anna, how even his voice sounded different. She listened to him saying, ‘Yes … yes …’ and something about Prague before she lost interest. But the conversation was soon over.

‘You’d better run along now,’ said Papa. He lifted his arms as though to give her a big hug. Then he put them down again. ‘I’d better not give you my ’flu,’ he said.

Anna helped Heimpi ice the cakes and then she and Max and Gunther ate them – all except three which Heimpi put in a paper bag for Gunther to take home to his mum. She had also found some more of Max’s outgrown clothes to fit him, so he had quite a nice parcel to take with him when he left.

They spent the rest of the evening playing games. Max and Anna had been given a games compendium for Christmas and had not yet got over the wonder of it. It contained draughts, chess, Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, dominoes and six different card games, all in one beautifully-made box. If you got tired of one game you could always play another. Heimpi sat with them in the nursery mending socks and even joined them for a game of Ludo. Bedtime came far too soon.

Next morning before school Anna ran into Papa’s room to see him. The desk was tidy. The bed was neatly made.

Papa had gone.

Chapter Two

Anna’s first thought was so terrible that she could not breathe. Papa had got worse in the night. He had been taken to hospital. Perhaps he … She ran blindly out of the room and found herself caught by Heimpi.

‘It’s all right! Your father has gone on a journey.’

‘A journey?’ Anna could not believe it. ‘But he’s ill – he had a temperature …’

‘He decided to go just the same,’ said Heimpi firmly. ‘Your mother was going to explain it all to you when you came home from school. Now I suppose you’ll have to hear straight away and Fräulein Schmidt will be kept twiddling her thumbs for you.’

‘What is it? Are we going to miss school?’ Max appeared hopefully on the landing.

Then Mama came out of her room. She was still in her dressing-gown and looked tired.

‘There’s no need to get terribly excited,’ she said. ‘But there are some things I must tell you. Heimpi, shall we have some coffee? And I expect the children could eat some more breakfast.’

Once they were all settled in Heimpi’s pantry with coffee and rolls Anna felt much better, and was even able to calculate that she would miss the geography lesson at school which she particularly disliked.

‘It’s quite simple,’ said Mama. ‘Papa thinks Hitler and the Nazis might win the elections. If that happened he would not want to live in Germany while they were in power, and nor would any of us.’

‘Because we’re Jews?’ asked Anna.

‘Not only because we’re Jews. Papa thinks no one would be allowed to say what they thought any more, and he wouldn’t be able to write. The Nazis don’t like people to disagree with them.’ Mama drank some of her coffee and looked more cheerful. ‘Of course it may never happen and if it did it probably wouldn’t last for long – maybe six months or so. But at the moment we just don’t know.’

‘But why did Papa leave so suddenly?’ asked Max.

‘Because yesterday someone rang him up and warned him that they might be going to take away his passport. So I packed him a small suitcase and he caught the night train to Prague – that’s the quickest way out of Germany.’

‘Who could take away his passport?’

‘The police. There are quite a few Nazis in the police.’

‘And who rang him up to warn him?’

Mama smiled for the first time.

‘Another policeman. One Papa had never met – but who had read his books and liked them.’

It took Anna and Max some time to digest all this.

Then Max asked, ‘But what’s going to happen now?’

‘Well,’ said Mama, ‘it’s only about ten days until the elections. Either the Nazis lose, in which case Papa comes back – or they win, in which case we join him.’

‘In Prague?’ asked Max.

‘No, probably in Switzerland. They speak German there – Papa would be able to write. We’d probably rent a little house and stay there until all this has blown over.’

‘Heimpi too?’ asked Anna.

‘Heimpi too.’

It sounded quite exciting. Anna was beginning to imagine it – a house in the mountains … goats … or was it cows? … when Mama said, ‘There is one thing more.’ Her voice was very serious.

‘This is the most important thing of all,’ said Mama, ‘and we need you to help us with it. Papa does not want anyone to know that he has left Germany. So you must not tell anyone. If anyone asks you about him you must say that he’s still in bed with ’flu.’

‘Can’t I even tell Gunther?’ asked Max.

‘No. Not Gunther, nor Elsbeth, not anyone.’

‘All right,’ said Max. ‘But it won’t be easy. People are always asking after him.’

‘Why can’t we tell anyone?’ asked Anna. ‘Why doesn’t Papa want anyone to know?’

‘Look,’ said Mama. ‘I’ve explained it all to you as well as I can. But you’re both still children – you can’t understand everything. Papa thinks the Nazis might … cause us some bother if they knew that he’d gone. So he does not want you to talk about it. Now are you going to do what he asks or not?’

Anna said, yes, of course she would.

Then Heimpi bundled them both off to school. Anna was worried about what to say if anyone asked her why she was late, but Max said, ‘Just tell them Mama overslept – she did, anyway!’

In fact, no one was very interested. They did high-jump in Gym and Anna jumped higher than anyone else in her class. She was so pleased about this that for the rest of the morning she almost forgot about Papa being in Prague.

When it was time to go home it all came back to her and she hoped Elsbeth would not ask her any awkward questions – but Elsbeth’s mind was on more important matters. Her aunt was coming to take her out that afternoon to buy her a yo-yo. What kind did Anna think she should choose? And what colour? The wooden ones worked best on the whole, but Elsbeth had seen a bright orange one which, though made of tin, had so impressed her with its beauty that she was tempted. Anna only had to say Yes and No, and by the time she got home for lunch the day felt more ordinary than she would ever have thought possible that morning.

Neither Anna nor Max had any homework and it was too cold to go out, so in the afternoon they sat on the radiator in the nursery and looked out of the window. The wind was rattling the shutters and blowing great lumps of cloud across the sky.

‘We might get more snow,’ said Max.

‘Max,’ said Anna, ‘do you hope that we will go to Switzerland?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Max. There were so many things he would miss. Gunther … his gang with whom he played football … school … He said, ‘I suppose we’d go to a school in Switzerland.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Anna. ‘I think it would be quite fun.’ She was almost ashamed to admit it, but the more she thought about it the more she wanted to go. To be in a strange country where everything would be different – to live in a different house, go to a different school with different children – a huge urge to experience it all overcame her and though she knew it was heartless, a smile appeared on her face.

‘It would only be for six months,’ she said apologetically, ‘and we’d all be together.’

The next few days passed fairly normally. Mama got a letter from Papa. He was comfortably installed in a hotel in Prague and was feeling much better. This cheered everyone up.

A few people inquired after him but were quite satisfied when the children said he had ’flu. There was so much of it about that it was not surprising. The weather continued very cold and the puddles caused by the thaw all froze hard again – but still there was no snow.

At last on the afternoon of the Sunday before the elections the sky turned very dark and then suddenly opened up to release a mass of floating, drifting, whirling white. Anna and Max were playing with the Kentner children who lived across the road. They stopped to watch the snow come down.

‘If only it had started a bit earlier,’ said Max. ‘By the time it’s thick enough for tobogganing, it will be too dark.’

At five o’clock when Anna and Max were going home it had only just stopped. Peter and Marianne Kentner saw them to the door. The snow lay thick and dry and crunchy all over the road and the moon was shining down on it.

‘Why don’t we go tobogganing in the moonlight?’ said Peter.

‘Do you think they’d let us?’

‘We’ve done it before,’ said Peter, who was fourteen. ‘Go and ask your mother.’

Mama said they could go provided they all stayed together and got home by seven. They put on their warmest clothes and set off.

It was only a quarter of an hour’s walk to the Grunewald, where a wooden slope made an ideal run down to a frozen lake. They had tobogganed there many times before, but it had always been daylight and the air had been loud with the shouts of other children. Now all they could hear was the soughing of the wind in the trees, the crunching of the new snow under their feet, and the gentle whir of the sledges as they slid along behind them. Above their heads the sky was dark but the ground shone blue in the moonlight and the shadows of the trees broke like black bands across it.

At the top of the slope they stopped and looked down. Nobody had been on it before them. The shimmering path of snow stretched ahead, perfect and unmarked, right down to the edge of the lake.

‘Who’s going down first?’ asked Max.

Anna did not mean to, but she found herself hopping up and down and saying, ‘Oh please – please …!’

Peter said, ‘All right – youngest first.’

That meant her because Marianne was ten.

She sat on her sledge, held on to the steering rope, took a deep breath and pushed off. The sledge began to move, rather gently, down the hill.

‘Go on!’ shouted the boys behind her. ‘Give it another push!’

But she didn’t. She kept her feet on the runners and let the sledge gather speed slowly. The powdery snow sprayed up all round her as the sledge struck it. The trees moved past, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The moonlight leapt all round her. At last she seemed to be flying through a mass of silver. Then the sledge hit the hump at the bottom of the slope, shot across it, and landed in a dapple of moonlight on the frozen lake. It was beautiful.

The others came down after her, squealing and shouting.

They went down the slope head first on their stomachs so that the snow sprayed straight into their faces. They went down feet first on their backs with the black tops of the fir trees rushing past above them. They all squeezed on to one sledge together and came down so fast that they shot on almost to the middle of the lake. After each ride they struggled back up the slope, panting and pulling the sledges behind them. In spite of the cold they were steaming inside their woollies.

Then it began to snow again. At first they hardly noticed it, but then the wind got up and blew the snow in their faces. All at once Max stopped in the middle of dragging his sledge up the slope and said, ‘What time is it? Oughtn’t we to be getting back?’

Nobody had a watch and they suddenly realised that they had no idea how long they had been there. Perhaps it was quite late and their parents had been waiting for them at home.

‘Come on,’ said Peter. ‘We’d better go quickly.’ He took off his gloves and knocked them together to shake the caked snow off them. His hands were red with cold. So were Anna’s, and she noticed for the first time that her feet were frozen.