The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey
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From Château Feuga it was an hour's walk to the closest post office, but still the Reys wrote and mailed letters to their publishers.
Besides The Adventures of Fiji, Hans and Margret began working on another book—this one about a penguin named Whiteblack, who loved to travel and see the world.
But since September France had been at war with Germany, and the Reys had German accents when they spoke French. A few local people whispered among themselves and called the village police officer, who then paid a visit to Feuga. Were these château guests perhaps German spies?
Hans led the officer up the stairs to his studio. The scattered pages of sketches and words, and watercolor illustrations of Fifi, the little monkey and Whiteblack, the penguin, told the true story:
Hans and Margret created books for children.
Top: German troops marching to the Polish front, 1939
Middle: Two illustrations from Curious George, 1941
Bottom right: From Whiteblack the Penguin. 2000
In 1939, Hitler's Germany was not a safe place for Jewish people to live.
Hans and Margret worried about old friends still living in Hamburg.
Their own families had moved away to London or Rio, and the Reys were glad to be living in France, glad they had become Brazilian citizens while in South America. Brazil was a neutral country in the brewing conflict in Europe.
In December, it was cold and drafty in the tower studio, too cold to open the shutters. There was snow on the peaks of the Pyrenées. Hans carried his artwork downstairs, and he and Margret packed up their belongings. The war was still far away, not yet in France.
It was safe to return home to the Terrass.
Left; Card made for Margret Rey by H A. Rey, December 24, 1939
Right: From Whiteblack the Penguin, 2000
The Winter of 1940
That January the Reys were back in Paris. The streets and cafés seemed bustling and noisy after the quiet months at Feuga. But Hans and Margret loved the energy of the city. Hans completed the title page for The Adventures of Fifi: a picture of Fifi in a tree at the zoo, holding the string of a red balloon. Then he signed the illustration in small black letters:
H. a. Rey—Paris Jan. 1940
Hans was also hard at work in 505 painting the watercolors for Whiteblack the Penguin.
One morning he dipped his brush into some black paint. In two of the illustrations Hans lettered the name PEGGY, his nickname for Margret, on a fishing boat. After all, the Reys were a team.
Top left: Original title page of Curious George, 1941
Bottom right: From Whiteblack the Penguin, 2000
On his tiny calendar, Hans recorded the work days as they slipped by:
Penguin ...
Penguin ...
Penguin ...
He studied the illustrations of this new story. Hmm.
He liked them as much as those for The Adventures of Fifi.
Perhaps ... even better.
Hans carefully painted a tiny French flag on the stern of Whiteblack's ship.
The Reys hoped to go on a ship soon themselves, to America for a visit in April.
But it was difficult to leave Europe now because of wartime regulations.
Top: From Whiteblack the Penguin, 2000
Bottom. H. A. Rey's diary pages from January 1940
Margret's older brother, also named Hans, came to Paris that winter for a visit.
The winter of 1940 was the coldest anyone could remember. Now there was snow on the balcony ledge and on the high walls of the cemetery. Hans Rey the artist and Hans Waldstein, a soldier in the French army, stood together in the cold sunshine on the roof garden of the Terrass while Margret snapped their pictures.
Photographs taken by Margret Rey, 1940
Working by the Sea
During the windy days of March, Hans worked hard on some final touches for Fifi. Then, in April, the Reys packed their suitcases for a train trip to Avranches, a town on the far edge of Normandy, on the English Channel. Now Hans and Margret could enjoy the sea air and look across the wide bay to the ancient fortress Mont St. Michel, a castle built on a rock in the shallow tidal flats.
Would Fifi and Whiteblack ever become published books? Because of the war, there were now strict laws about printing. Typesetters had joined the army. Paper was getting scarce.
Hans mailed letters to editors in London and Paris and included the Reys' vacation address.
H. A. Rey
Hotel D'Angleterre
Avranches (Manche)
The Reys were relieved when Hans signed a contract for Fifi, as well as for two small manuscripts, and received an advance of money from their Paris publisher.
Little did they know how needed those French francs would be in the weeks to follow.
Margret and Hans began a new project: a book of nursery songs in French and English. Hans drew the strong black lines of his style and added the musical notes. In wartime, children needed good books and songs more than ever.
Opposite, left: Editorial tetter from the Reys' British publisher
Opposite, background Mont-Saint-Michel
Top right: H. A. Rey's contract with French publisher Gallimard
Middle and bottom: Two pages from H. A. Rey's Au Claire de la Lune and Other French Nursery Songs, 1941
The Terrible Week
On the morning of May 10, 1940, while Hans was again at his desk, touching up a page of Fifi, history was happening.
Miles awray from Avranches, the German army crossed over the border into the neutral countries of Holland and Belgium.
That day Hans bought two local newspapers. In the cafés, people listened intently to the radio broadcasts of the rapid German advance. Everyone was worried.
Some had sons or brothers fighting with the French army.
But... the French army was strong! It was mighty!
It would protect Avranches ... and all of France!
It would stop the advance of the Germans.
Top: Dutch street in May 1940
Bottom and above right: H. A. Rey's diary pages from May 1940
Opposite: German troops in France, ca. 1940–1945
That terrible week, it was hard for Hans and Margret to put their hearts into their work. France was their home now. On May 13, Hans wrote in his diary:
Songs English very slowly because of the events. The war was no longer far away. On the northern French border, the Nazi tanks moved like lightning. It was a blitzkrieg!
On May 19, Hans recorded Songs in his notebook. It would be the last day that H. A. Rey painted his book illustrations in France. From then on, he and Margret needed to focus on their safety in the time of war.
They bought train tickets to return home.
ESCAPE FROM PARIS
PART II
Paris in Wartime
On May 23, the Reys arrived back in Paris and took the metro to Montmartre. The cafés were still open and busy, but the tempo of the city had changed.
From the north came a stream of refugees— more and more arrived in Paris each day. Hundreds ... then thousands... then thousands more. Train stations were filled with people. Such anxious faces and so few trains! Everyone wanted to travel in the same direction: south... away from, the fighting. There was not enough food or water at the stations. In the unusual June heat, some refugees fainted. The elegant avenues of the French capital were crowded with bicycles, Belgian farm carts and horses, and Dutch cars with mattresses strapped to the roof. All belonged to civilians fleeing from the war zones to the north. Even barges on the Seine carried refugees. The stories in the Paris newspapers were full of gloomy news.
PLANS TO FLEE
At their Terrass apartment, Hans and Margret remained calm. But they were German-born Jews, and Hitler's soldiers were moving swiftly toward the French capital. The Reys would have to leave, and quickly
They decided to try to return to Brazil, and then travel on to America. Margret's sister was there, near New Yor
k City.
But there was much to do before they could leave.
One needed so many papers to leave a country in a time of war.
Identity cards.
Visas.
And tickets.
Tickets for any trains heading south.
And money!
One always needed money for a long journey ... Would they get it all in time?
The next day, Hans went immediately to the Brazilian consulate and paid for updated passports. He withdrew money from his bank accounts, as many francs as he was allowed. That week, the Reys went to the same few places over and over again to get the documents they needed for their journey: the American consulate ... the Portuguese consulate ... the Spanish consulate ... and again, the bank. Then back to the consulates. Everywhere they went for their documents, there were long queues that wound around street corners. Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Everything needed to be official. Everything needed to be stamped with the date. The list of expenses in Hans's notebook grew and grew: baggage... insurance... taxi... tailor... umbrella...
Hans's calendar became a record of a husband and wife, two artists, getting ready to leave their beloved home.
Opposite, top: H. A. Rey's Brazilian passport
Opposite, bottom: Pages from the Reys' French identity cards
Right: H. A. Rey's diary pages from May 1940
At night, the streets of Paris had an eerie dark blue gleam from the blackout cloth on the streetlamps. The slow, loud whine of air raid sirens, mostly false alarms, woke the city night after night.
The news from the front was grim. The Belgian king had surrendered to the Germans. Most of the British army, and more than 100,000 French soldiers, had to be rescued from the beaches at Dunkirk. The English Channel was full of hundreds of boats and ships trying to save the retreating armies, taking them to safety in England.
On June 7, Hans recorded in his notebook that the neighborhood was awakened in the night by an alert from the préfecture.
By June 10, two million Parisians had left the city, including the government officials who fled first to Tours, and then farther south to Bordeaux. Only one newspaper was still being printed in Paris. Monuments and historic buildings were ringed with sandbags as protection against bombs and fighting. Shops were shuttered. Taxis were impossible to find.
A belated radio broadcast let citizens know that Paris had been declared an open city. The government had decided not to barricade its streets or fight the invading army, whose tanks could turn the French capital into rubble in a matter of days. Major avenues and the lovely, wide Champs-Élysées were empty. Paris was waiting...
A BICYCLE MAKER
Hans and Margret were among the few tenants still at the Terrass Hotel. On June 11, the Reys went scouting for two bicycles to buy since they had no car, and the trains were no longer running. They found a small shop open, but the owner shrugged and pointed to a tandem vélo. It was the only bicycle left in his store. "You should have come sooner, monsieur." Hans wheeled the long bicycle outside and persuaded Margret to practice riding it with him on the rue de la Paix and around the Place Vendôme. It was a disaster! Margret shook her head and said that riding a tandem would never work.
The Reys returned the bicycle and bargained with the owner. For 1,600 francs, almost a month's lodging at the Terrass, Hans bought spare parts for two bicycles from the shelves of the vélo store, and four large baskets. Margret hurried back to their apartment and chose a small pile of belongings. She took the Reys' manuscripts and artwork from the desk and slid them carefully into a satchel.
Meanwhile, Hans worked in the back room of the store, with tools, handlebars, pedals, and tires. With baskets on each bicycle, the Reys would be able to pack a few more things for their journey. Then Hans recorded his work in his pocket calendar. That hot June afternoon, H. A. Rey, the artist, became a bicycle maker.
The biggest adventure of his life was about to begin...
PEDALING SOUTH
On Wednesday, June 12, it was raining on the empty streets of Paris. Finally raining, after the days of hot weather. At five-thirty in the morning, the Reys began their flight from the city, across wet cobblestone streets that glistened beneath their tires.
The Reys had to travel light: only a few clothes and their winter coats, some bread and cheese, a little meat, water, an umbrella, Hans's pipe, and the precious manuscripts, including The Adventures of Fiji.
Everything else they owned was left behind. Hans hoped the boxes and suitcases at the Terrass would somehow be shipped safely to Margret's sister in America as planned.
Hans and Margret joined the thousands of refugees leaving Paris. After the first kilometers, the Reys' clothes were damp with rain so Hans made sure that his artwork stayed dry in the basket under his winter coat. Hans and Margret rode in and out of the lines of cars, taxis and trucks, green city buses and farm carts, other bicycles and stragglers on foot.
The drizzle of rain stopped and the sun came out. The Reys pedaled ... and pedaled ... and pedaled. With each kilometer, the seats of their vélos felt harder on their backsides. Their necks and their backs began to ache. And their legs and their knees. Even the palms of their hands.
Everywhere there was confusion and noise: grinding gears of overheated cars and the frightening drone of German scout planes. Constant and relentless were the car horns, honking to speed up the crawling procession of the largest motorized evacuation in history.
More than five million people were on the roads of France that day. Among this sea of humanity were two small figures: Margret and H. A. Rey.
HELP ALONG THE WAY
Margret and Hans were not afraid. They felt a sense of freedom, traveling light. Most important, they were together.
That first day, the Reys pedaled forty-eight kilometers to the town of Étampes. Past the crowded main square, they found a farmhouse set back from the road. The owner offered Margret and Hans simple lodging: a room already housing a servant and a woman refugee. The grateful Reys wrapped themselves in their coats and instantly fell asleep.
By three o'clock the next morning, Margret and Hans were on their way again in the darkness. The sky was a blue-black canvas filled with stars. As the sun rose, the road flattened out into open land. That day Hans and Margret pedaled twenty-six kilometers until they reached the tiny village of Acquebouille.
They spied a farm on a side road and walked their bicycles into a walled yard full of thick mud and clucking hens. Once again, the Reys were lucky. A kindly farmwoman offered them sweet, fresh milk as well as a place to sleep. Hans recorded the route and events: Nuit au etable aux vaches. That night, Hans and Margret Rey slept on a bed of hay in a stable full of cows.
Early the next day, the Reys were off again, pedaling, pedaling, thirty-two kilometers from Acquebouille to the city of Orléans. There Hans and Margret hoped to catch a train that would take them south. They still had far to go: their destination was Portugal ... and then... a ship across the Atlantic.
The train station in Orléans was bedlam!
There were a few hand-lettered signs for missing children, tacked up on the walls by frantic parents:
Jean-Claude Moncourt, 5 ans, perdu le 10 juin.
Helene et Martine Landau... 6 et 4 ans-perdu pres d'ici le 11 juin.
These were difficult days for the French people.
Two days after the Reys passed through, Étampes was heavily bombed. Their escape had been narrow indeed.
At the Orléans station, Hans touched his inside pocket checking that the documents and tickets he had bought in Paris were safe.
Then he and Margret hoisted their bicycles and dusty bundles into the crowded train car headed in the direction of Bordeaux. The train slowly pulled out of the Orléans station, then swayed and clattered along the tracks as it gathered speed.
To Hans and Margret, after three days of pedaling, the sound was wonderful.
The date was Friday, June 14, 1940, a terrible day in the history of Paris:
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Nazi troops had goose-stepped by the thousands down the broad Champs-Élysées and replaced the French flag flying atop the Eiffel Tower with the swastika of Hitler's Third Reich.
Occupied Paris was only 106 kilometers to the north. Safety for the Reys lay in the long journey ahead. Margret and Hans dozed and talked as they watched two days and two nights cover the landscape.
Hans jotted down the direction of their route in his diary as he sat with Margret by the open windows hour after hour.
The air was hot inside the train.
What had happened to Paris and the Terrass Hotel?
Were their other friends safe?
So many questions without answers.
WEARY REFUGEES
Finally, close to five A.M. on June 16, the Reys' train pulled into the station at Bayonne. Hans and Margret, tired and disheveled, climbed down to the platform and pushed their bicycles through the crowds of people, inhaling the air of southern France. What a clamor of station noise! But what a relief!
The population of the small town was triple its usual size. Local police pointed them in the direction of the public high school. That night, after being welcomed with plates of good food, Hans and Margret curled up again on their winter coats, surrounded by hundreds of other weary refugees.
The next morning, Hans counted up their remaining francs. The amount was shrinking, day by day. The Reys bought only a few things: soap, shirts, two jackets, a shawl, and a backpack. Hans sent telegrams to London and Rio, telling family and friends that they had gotten out of Paris.