When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit: A Touching Child's-Eye Memoir, One Step Ahead of the War
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-plus
No, child’s-eye “rabbit” views of Hitler aren’t becoming a genre. Despite sharing the word with Jojo Rabbit, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a memoir one step removed from the Third Reich – or rather one step ahead of it.
Adapted by director Caroline Link from Judith Kerr’s autobiographically-based novel about a Jewish family’s escape from 1930s Berlin, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit leaves the violence of the Third Reich entirely off-screen, in our mind’s eye. Its focus is a precocious little girl named Anna (Riva Krymalowski), who tries to make sense of the sudden upturning of her life.
Fleeing the Nazis is an entirely different experience through a child’s eyes in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
The title is a reference to what was left behind. As Germany’s fateful 1933 election looms, noted theatre and social critic Arthur Kemper (Oliver Masucci) assesses his status as a vocal anti-Nazi and realizes he will be a marked man the day after the election.
Everyone knows this, and already some neighbours begin regarding him and his wife Dorothea (Carla Juri) with sinister smiles.
So, before the ballots are even counted, the Kempers uproot and nervously head by train to Zurich, leaving everything behind but what can be carried in a suitcase. Anna and her older brother Max (Marinus Hohmann) are each allowed one toy. Anna must choose between a teddy bear and a pink rabbit and the latter is regretfully abandoned.
We soon find out – courtesy of reports from the family’s Uncle Julius (Justus von Dohnányi) and beloved housekeeper (Ursula Werner) – that Arthur’s instincts were correct. Hitler’s first act upon being elected Chancellor was to stamp out his critics. The Kempers’ home was quickly emptied by soldiers, their property put “in storage.” And it is left to our imagination what would have happened to them had they stayed.
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The audience has future knowledge that the Kempers, and certainly Anna, do not. The as-yet undeclared war is years away, and the now wandering family experiences both kindness and cruelty, acceptance and open anti-Semitism, as they make their way from Zurich to Paris to London with a declared price on Arthur’s head.
Link’s film is shot largely through the eyes of Anna, whose initial attitude to places that aren’t Germany – even German-speaking ones – is haughty. When she complains about having to learn a new language in Switzerland, her new best friend protests, “I speak German!”
“More or less,” Anna replies sarcastically.
What follows is a family of former upper-middle-class Jewish intellectuals learning to live with less wherever they go. And yet, for Anna, the experience seems to become richer with each challenge, each move becoming more of an adventure and her gift for learning languages coming to the fore. Her arc goes from being a German to becoming a citizen of the world (albeit out of necessity).
Krymalowski brings a vivacious energy to a movie that would otherwise be one long trudge to safe haven. And director Link makes good use of the scenery (particularly to the alpine surroundings of Zurich) to suggest that, to the children at least, each new destination is practically another planet.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Directed by Caroline Link. Scripted by Anna Brüggemann from the book by Judith Kerr. Stars Riva Krymalowski, Oliver Masucci and Carla Juri. Available On Demand on Tuesday, August 10.