First published in Great Britain by William Collins and Sons and Co. Ltd in 1971
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
Text and illustrations copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1971
Note from the author copyright © Judith Kerr 2008
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017
Cover illustration © Judith Kerr 2017
Judith Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007274772
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007380466
Version: 2017-06-15
For my parents
Julia and Alfred Kerr
Contents
Anna was walking home from school with Elsbeth, a girl in her class. A lot of snow had fallen in Berlin that winter. It did not melt, so the street cleaners had swept it to the edge of the pavement, and there it had lain for weeks in sad, greying heaps. Now, in February, the snow had turned into slush and there were puddles everywhere. Anna and Elsbeth skipped over them in their lace-up boots.
They both wore thick coats and woollen caps which kept their ears warm, and Anna had a muffler as well. She was nine but small for her age and the ends of the muffler hung down almost to her knees. It also covered up her mouth and nose, so the only parts of her that showed were her green eyes and a tuft of dark hair. She had been hurrying because she wanted to buy some crayons at the paper shop and it was nearly time for lunch. But now she was so out of breath that she was glad when Elsbeth stopped to look at a large red poster.
‘It’s another picture of that man,’ said Elsbeth. ‘My little sister saw one yesterday and thought it was Charlie Chaplin.’
Anna looked at the staring eyes, the grim expression. She said, ‘It’s not a bit like Charlie Chaplin except for the moustache.’
They spelled out the name under the photograph.
Adolf