When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Judith Kerr
 The story starts in Berlin, March 1933, when nine-year-old Anna, the main character in the trilogy, finds out her father is missing one morning. She and her brother, Max, discover that Papa thinks that Hitler might win the elections, and has fled to Prague. Because the family is Jewish, and Papa is also a well-known Jewish author, this is important. If Hitler was to win the elections, Mama, Max and Anna would join him in Switzerland. If he was to lose, then Papa would come back home to Berlin. However, the plan goes wrong, and Mama and the children are rushed into Switzerland in alarming secrecy. It is at this time that Anna has to choose which toy she wishes to take with her. She opts to take her new woolly dog, and leave behind her pink rabbit toy, believing she will return to Berlin after a short time. It is from this that the title is derived as she considers that Hitler and the Nazis have "stolen" her toy. There, they settle in a Swiss boarding house, and the family stay there for a few months. But soon, Papa thinks that they should move to Paris, and goes there to find out about accommodation. Papa comes back and wants Mama to come back with him as a prospective buyer. So Max and Anna are left on their own for a little while. The Nazis find out about Papa as he travels, and a price of one thousand marks is put on his head. This really scares Anna and she is afraid that it means that Papa will be put in a room with one thousand coins being dropped onto his head, suffocating him. She goes on believing this until Max tells her what it really means. When Papa soon comes back to collect them, (Mama stays in Paris to settle into the apartment they have bought) a porter tries to put them on the wrong train, one that would send them back to Germany, so that he could be imprisoned by the Nazis. Fortunately, though, Anna notices the label just in time, and they manage to get back on the correct train to Paris. There, Max attends a boys' school, and it takes a long time but Mama finally finds an elementary school for Anna. Anna finds French hard for a little while, but one day it clicks and she finds herself able to speak it fluently. After two years in Paris (in 1936), the family decide to move again, this time to London after Papa thinks the BBC might buy a biographical film script on Napoleon, inspired by a talk he had with the children. The story ends as Mama, Papa, Max and Anna get off the train in England, to be greeted by Mama's Cousin otto