Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl von Judith Kerr: Geschichte mit den Augen eines Kindes betrachte

Abstract

The novel Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl was published 1971 in Great Britain, translated into german by Annemarie Böll in 1973 and the author Judith Kerr has been awarded just one year later with the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. The story about nine year old Anna, who has to escape in 1933 together with her family from Nazi Germany and relocate to Switzerland and later on to France was influenced by Judith Kerrs biography. The book finds itself nowadays in the requierd reading lists at many German schools an has been regarded as Judith Kerrs most famous novel. It is actually part of a trilogy in which the writer expresses her own experiences while reflecting in her writing the spirit of the 1930s an 1940s. Judith Kerr presents the perspective of a child and therefore the political aspects are not at the center of the story, quite the opposite, they move to the background, while the focus is being placed on the main characters personal perception of exile and a life dominated by fear and insecurities. This perspective makes the storyline in my opinion even more revealing and touching at the same time. In the following article I aim to analyse the literary manner in which Judith Kerr transforms the story of her familiy into the story of a whole generation and by doing that she earns her place amongst the authors who contributed to the process of reconstruction of collective memory.