Judith Kerr OBE: Refugee, Writer of Outstanding Children and Young Persons’ Literature and Illustrator

It saddens me now that I was too old to read Judith Kerr in her prime. By that time I’d moved on to Ian Fleming. Even worse, I failed to introduce my son to Judith when he was learning to read.

Escape from Nazi Germany

Judith Kerr was born in Berlin in 1923 into a non-orthodox Jewish family. She had an elder brother, Michael, and her father Alfred was a well-known theatre critic and writer who had openly criticised Hitler and whose books were amongst those burned by the Nazis in May 1933. By this time, the family had left Germany. There were brief stopovers in Switzerland and Paris before they settled in London where they remained. Her father had fled earlier than the rest of his family because he had been warned that he was likely to be arrested by the Gestapo at any moment.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Judith later wrote of her early years in a semi-biographical trilogy of books, the first of which was When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. This told the story of her escape from Berlin, the difficult years in Switzerland and France and the setting off for England. It is a required reading text for older teenagers in most German schools. In 2019 Oscar-winning director Caroline Link made a film of the book. I have yet to track it down but I shall. It’s in German with English subtitles.

Out of the Hitler Time

The second of these books dealt with the war years in London when the family mostly lived in hotels in the Bloomsbury area of the capital and was entitled Bombs on Aunt Dainty. The family’s experiences in the blitz-torn capital are certainly worth reading. Finally, came the early post-war years as the adult Judith made her way in austerity London. This final book in the trilogy was entitled A Small Person Far Away. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit was published in 1971, followed by Bombs on Aunt Dainty in 1975 followed by A Small Person Far Away three years later. Collectively the trilogy are known as Out of the Hitler Time.

A New Life in Britain

Kerr became a British citizen in 1947. In the immediate post-war period she won a scholarship to the Central School of Art and Design. In 1954, she married a screenwriter Nigel Kneale who had already written the story and script of The Quatermass Experiment. I remember watching it on BBC television in 1953. Kerr had helped her future husband design and operate some of the special effects in the serial. For a nine-year-old, as I was then, it was a frightening experience watching it. Two sequels followed and, for Kneale, it started a long and mostly successful career writing for both the small and large screen.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Her Legacy

For Judith Kerr, she began her own life in the spotlight when she began a long spell of writing and illustrating some of the most popular children’s literature of the post-war period. Amongst the best known of these publications was The Tiger Who Came to Tea (1968) which was later made into a highly entertaining animated film. By the time of her death in 2019 her books had sold 10 million copies worldwide. Her husband had died in 2006 and therefore didn’t live to see her awarded the OBE, for services to children’s literature and Holocaust education in 2012.