When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971) is a children’s novel by Judith Kerr. The novel is set between 1933 and 1936, and traces the life of protagonist Anna, who is nine years old at the novel’s opening, as her family flees Germany for Switzerland, France, and, finally, England. Although the novel is a work of fiction, it is semi-autobiographical. Kerr is of German-Jewish heritage, and her family left Germany once Hitler rose to power in 1933. Her father was the prominent cultural critic, Alfred Kerr. The family traveled around Europe for several years before settling in London, where Kerr completed middle and high school. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit won Germany’s top prize for children’s fiction in 1974. The novel is the first in a trilogy: The second novel is Bombs on Aunt Dainty (1975), which details Anna’s experience in London during WWII, and the series concludes with A Small Person Far Away (1978), in which Anna, now a young woman and married, visits her mother, who has moved back to Berlin.

This guide refers to the 1972 Coward, McCan & Geoghegan, Inc., New York edition. 

Content Warning: This guide and the source text contain references to antisemitic persecution, genocide, violence, death by suicide, and imprisonment.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with the nine-year-old protagonist, Anna, walking around Berlin with her friend Elsbeth. It is a few months before March 1933, and Adolf Hitler is running for Chancellor of Germany. The girls see fliers for his campaign around town. They discuss his pledge to ban Jews from Germany. Anna has never thought about Judaism in-depth, but she tells Elsbeth that she’s technically Jewish. Elsbeth, who is not Jewish, says the whole thing is silly and wants it to go away. Anna gets home and her older brother, Max, and his friend, Gunther, discuss fights between the Nazis and the “Sozis” (Socialists) that are happening on the playground.

A few days later, Anna’s father, who has been sick with the flu, is gone from his bed. Anna and Max’s mother explains that their father has fled Germany, and that they will be following him shortly. They are not to tell anyone. Anna’s father is a famous author and journalist who has published criticism of the Nazi party; Anna’s father predicts that if Hitler comes to power, he will be imprisoned and possibly killed.

As the election closes in, Hitler’s prospects look good. The Reichstag building (the German equivalent of Congress) is burned down. The Nazis may have burned the building themselves in order to blame the Communists and justify their own attempts to assume more power. Anna, Max, and their mother pack all of their belongings. The children say goodbye to Onkel Julius, a close friend of the family (although not their actual uncle) who insists on staying in Germany because he believes that the Nazis will not last; he also does not think he is in danger, because he had a Jewish grandmother, but not Jewish parents. The children can only bring a limited number of items as they travel. Anna can only bring one stuffed animal with her and must choose between her beloved Pink Rabbit and a fluffy dog. She ultimately chooses the dog, but her mother assures them that if they have to remain in Switzerland, where they are fleeing to, their maid Fraulein Heimpel (Heimpi) can send more toys.

Anna’s mother, Max, and Anna take a series of trains from Germany. The passport check at the German/Swiss border is a tense moment, but the family is waved through without issue. They have an emotional reunion with Anna’s father at the train station in Zurich. The family stays at an expensive hotel for a few weeks. Anna contracts a bad flu and is extremely sick. When she finally recovers, she learns that the Nazi party has come to power in Germany, that police came to the family’s (recently vacated) home the morning after the election to seize their passports, and that the Nazis have seized their home and all of their possessions.

The family moves to a more affordable inn in a village on Lake Zurich, where they live for almost a year. Anna goes to the local school and Max goes to a high school in Zurich. They become friends with the children of the inn-keepers, Vreneli and Franz. The family is safe and relaxed; indeed, the only time they experience antisemitism is when they encounter German tourists, who ban their children from playing with Anna and Max. Onkel Julius visits and Papa implores him to stay, but Onkel Julius is confident that he won’t experience antisemitic persecution, and returns to Berlin. The family never sees him again.

The parents decide that the family would be happier in Paris. Papa can’t find much work as a journalist, as the Swiss want to remain neutral and not antagonize their neighbor to the north and therefore will not publish his anti-Nazi rhetoric. Papa and Mama travel to the French capital while Max and Anna stay in Switzerland. Meanwhile, the Nazis have offered a reward of one thousand Marks to anyone who can turn in Papa, dead or alive.

Papa returns to Switzerland safely. He then brings Max and Anna back to Paris. They nearly end up on the wrong train, into Germany, but in the last second, Anna sees a sign and they quickly manage to get off the train before it starts moving. They are not sure if this was an intentional mistake by the porter who hurried them onto the train.

In Paris, Anna starts school. She struggles immensely with speaking French and feels overwhelmed to be in a fluent French classroom. Max, too, struggles with this. He feels foreign and different, which he finds exhausting and stressful. Anna’s mother urges Anna to persevere with the language. One day, Anna is overjoyed to realize that she understands its concepts and can speak it fluently. Anna wins a prize in a composition competition for a French exam, and Max wins a prize for being the strongest student in his class.

A German man who is a stranger to the family, Herr Rosenfeld, visits, bringing a simple note from Onkel Julius: “Good-bye. I wish you well,” as well as his watch (183). Onkel Julius died by suicide after losing his job, home, and finally, his rights to visit his beloved animals at the zoo. Papa is devastated.

The family enjoys life in Paris for the most part. They make good friends, the Fernands, with whom they enjoy spending Sundays. They celebrate Bastille Day and enjoy the French food and the Parisian lifestyle. However, there is also constant stress about the family’s finances, as France is experiencing a Depression, and there isn’t much demand or pay for Anna’s father’s work. Anna’s mother struggles with the load of domestic labor involved in running a house on a small budget; in Berlin, the family was extremely wealthy and paid for help with domestic duties. The family decides to move to London, where a film company has bought the rights to a film script that Papa wrote. Papa hopes that there will be more work for him in general.

The family travels to England on a ferry through rough seas, and then on a train from the South of England to London. They are met by Anna’s mother’s cousin, Otto, who helps them through the rain toward a taxi. Max and Anna discuss the fact that they cannot speak or understand English, but Anna is confident that—as they did in France—they will soon learn.