When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

They spent the rest of the evening playing games. Max and Anna had been given a games compendium for Christmas and had not yet got over the wonder of it. It contained draughts, chess, Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, dominoes and six different card games, all in one beautifully-made box. If you got tired of one game you could always play another. Heimpi sat with them in the nursery mending socks and even joined them for a game of Ludo. Bedtime came far too soon.

Next morning before school Anna ran into Papa’s room to see him. The desk was tidy. The bed was neatly made.

Papa had gone.

Chapter Two (#ulink_b552847e-641d-5de8-8cd5-6c802adf3a1e)

Anna’s first thought was so terrible that she could not breathe. Papa had got worse in the night. He had been taken to hospital. Perhaps he … She ran blindly out of the room and found herself caught by Heimpi.

‘It’s all right! Your father has gone on a journey.’

‘A journey?’ Anna could not believe it. ‘But he’s ill – he had a temperature …’

‘He decided to go just the same,’ said Heimpi firmly. ‘Your mother was going to explain it all to you when you came home from school. Now I suppose you’ll have to hear straight away and Fräulein Schmidt will be kept twiddling her thumbs for you.’

‘What is it? Are we going to miss school?’ Max appeared hopefully on the landing.

Then Mama came out of her room. She was still in her dressing-gown and looked tired.

‘There’s no need to get terribly excited,’ she said. ‘But there are some things I must tell you. Heimpi, shall we have some coffee? And I expect the children could eat some more breakfast.’

Once they were all settled in Heimpi’s pantry with coffee and rolls Anna felt much better, and was even able to calculate that she would miss the geography lesson at school which she particularly disliked.

‘It’s quite simple,’ said Mama. ‘Papa thinks Hitler and the Nazis might win the elections. If that happened he would not want to live in Germany while they were in power, and nor would any of us.’

‘Because we’re Jews?’ asked Anna.

‘Not only because we’re Jews. Papa thinks no one would be allowed to say what they thought any more, and he wouldn’t be able to write. The Nazis don’t like people to disagree with them.’ Mama drank some of her coffee and looked more cheerful. ‘Of course it may never happen and if it did it probably wouldn’t last for long – maybe six months or so. But at the moment we just don’t know.’

‘But why did Papa leave so suddenly?’ asked Max.

‘Because yesterday someone rang him up and warned him that they might be going to take away his passport. So I packed him a small suitcase and he caught the night train to Prague – that’s the quickest way out of Germany.’

‘Who could take away his passport?’

‘The police. There are quite a few Nazis in the police.’

‘And who rang him up to warn him?’

Mama smiled for the first time.

‘Another policeman. One Papa had never met – but who had read his books and liked them.’

It took Anna and Max some time to digest all this.

Then Max asked, ‘But what’s going to happen now?’

‘Well,’ said Mama, ‘it’s only about ten days until the elections. Either the Nazis lose, in which case Papa comes back – or they win, in which case we join him.’

‘In Prague?’ asked Max.

‘No, probably in Switzerland. They speak German there – Papa would be able to write. We’d probably rent a little house and stay there until all this has blown over.’

‘Heimpi too?’ asked Anna.

‘Heimpi too.’

It sounded quite exciting. Anna was beginning to imagine it – a house in the mountains … goats … or was it cows? … when Mama said, ‘There is one thing more.’ Her voice was very serious.

‘This is the most important thing of all,’ said Mama, ‘and we need you to help us with it. Papa does not want anyone to know that he has left Germany. So you must not tell anyone. If anyone asks you about him you must say that he’s still in bed with ’flu.’

‘Can’t I even tell Gunther?’ asked Max.

‘No. Not Gunther, nor Elsbeth, not anyone.’

‘All right,’ said Max. ‘But it won’t be easy. People are always asking after him.’

‘Why can’t we tell anyone?’ asked Anna. ‘Why doesn’t Papa want anyone to know?’

‘Look,’ said Mama. ‘I’ve explained it all to you as well as I can. But you’re both still children – you can’t understand everything. Papa thinks the Nazis might … cause us some bother if they knew that he’d gone. So he does not want you to talk about it. Now are you going to do what he asks or not?’

Anna said, yes, of course she would.

Then Heimpi bundled them both off to school. Anna was worried about what to say if anyone asked her why she was late, but Max said, ‘Just tell them Mama overslept – she did, anyway!’

In fact, no one was very interested. They did high-jump in Gym and Anna jumped higher than anyone else in her class. She was so pleased about this that for the rest of the morning she almost forgot about Papa being in Prague.

When it was time to go home it all came back to her and she hoped Elsbeth would not ask her any awkward questions – but Elsbeth’s mind was on more important matters. Her aunt was coming to take her out that afternoon to buy her a yo-yo. What kind did Anna think she should choose? And what colour? The wooden ones worked best on the whole, but Elsbeth had seen a bright orange one which, though made of tin, had so impressed her with its beauty that she was tempted. Anna only had to say Yes and No, and by the time she got home for lunch the day felt more ordinary than she would ever have thought possible that morning.

Neither Anna nor Max had any homework and it was too cold to go out, so in the afternoon they sat on the radiator in the nursery and looked out of the window. The wind was rattling the shutters and blowing great lumps of cloud across the sky.

‘We might get more snow,’ said Max.

‘Max,’ said Anna, ‘do you hope that we will go to Switzerland?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Max. There were so many things he would miss. Gunther … his gang with whom he played football … school … He said, ‘I suppose we’d go to a school in Switzerland.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Anna. ‘I think it would be quite fun.’ She was almost ashamed to admit it, but the more she thought about it the more she wanted to go. To be in a strange country where everything would be different – to live in a different house, go to a different school with different children – a huge urge to experience it all overcame her and though she knew it was heartless, a smile appeared on her face.

‘It would only be for six months,’ she said apologetically, ‘and we’d all be together.’

The next few days passed fairly normally. Mama got a letter from Papa. He was comfortably installed in a hotel in Prague and was feeling much better. This cheered everyone up.

A few people inquired after him but were quite satisfied when the children said he had ’flu. There was so much of it about that it was not surprising. The weather continued very cold and the puddles caused by the thaw all froze hard again – but still there was no snow.

At last on the afternoon of the Sunday before the elections the sky turned very dark and then suddenly opened up to release a mass of floating, drifting, whirling white. Anna and Max were playing with the Kentner children who lived across the road. They stopped to watch the snow come down.

‘If only it had started a bit earlier,’ said Max. ‘By the time it’s thick enough for tobogganing, it will be too dark.’