When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl) is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Judith Kerr.

Director: Caroline Linke, 2019, Germany, color, 119 minutes, German with English subtitles

When the National Socialists come to power in Germany in 1933, it is clear to the Jewish Kemper family: we have to leave Berlin as quickly as possible, because the father, as a theater critic, has openly opposed the Nazis. Little Anna Kemper is faced with a difficult choice before the headlong escape. She is only allowed to take one cuddly toy with her and finally decides to entrust her beloved pink rabbit to Heimpi, the housekeeper who stays behind. From Berlin she first goes to Switzerland, then on to Paris and finally to London, an uncertain and unsteady life full of challenges and hardships, in which Anna is forced again and again to adapt to the changing circumstances. Based on Judith Kerr's classic autobiographical children's book of the same name, director Caroline Link succeeds not only in making a sensitive family film that appeals to children and adults alike, but above all in presenting the subject of persecution, flight and exile under National Socialism in an age-appropriate way.

Post screening discussion with Prof. Sara Hall, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies, Chair of the Minor in Moving Image Arts, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago