When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Max and Anna are two children who live in Berlin with their family of Jewish heritage. Elections are to be held in Germany in 1933 and Anna’s father is advised by a friend to leave the country, because if the Nazis win, all passports of Jewish citizens will be withdrawn. So the family leaves for Switzerland in great haste, with lots of bags to carry, and Anna has to choose which toy to take with her. She decides to take a woolly dog, leaving the pink rabbit she loves so much in Berlin. A few years later, when she is in Switzerland, she hears that all their possessions have been confiscated and that she will never see her beloved bunny again, for it has been “stolen” by Hitler, just as all the children persecuted by the Nazis have had their childhood stolen from them. The book is partly autobiographical and is now a classic for all young people to read, for it tells of the horrors of Nazi persecution, as seen through the eyes of a child.   When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Judith Kerr Rizzoli, 1981