The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey

by Louise Louise

  The Reys left Bayonne and bicycled down the coast to nearby Biarritz to get more travel visas. Outside the Portuguese consulate in the shade of the tamarind trees, Hans and Margret waited in line for four hours. Those who couldn't get permission to travel through Spain or Portugal would have to remain in occupied France for the duration of the war.

  Finally, Margret and Hans were granted their transit visas. Thump! Thump! They would be allowed to travel on to Hendaye, the French border town a few kilometers south. There they would need approval to board the train for Spain. Others, ahead of them and behind them in line, were not so fortunate.

  That night, in Hendaye, the Reys spread out their coats on the floor of a small restaurant. With a handful of francs, they had persuaded a waiter to let them spend the night there.

  The next morning, at the Spanish consulate, their wait was five hours. Then ... finally ... a weary Spanish official stamped the Reys' papers. Margret and Hans celebrated by eating a lunch of sardines and tuna fish. Now they could travel through Spain and on to Portugal.

  And the two bicycles that had carried the Reys all those kilometers out of Parish? Hans sold them on the train platform to a customs official for 650 francs. The Reys would not be needing them in Lisbon, or onboard a ship to America.

  ACROSS SPAIN

  The train from Hendaye was so overcrowded with Polish émigrés that Margret and Hans had to stand in the swaying car before they could find seats. An official passed slowly through their car, checking identity papers with stern eyes. He began to question Hans about his job and asked Hans to open up his leather satchel. Perhaps these passengers were spies, leaving France with important papers?

  Then the official thumbed through the pages of The Adventures of Fifi. "Ah ...un livre pour les enfants."

  The official smiled briefly. He handed the passports and visas back to Hans and moved on. Once again, the mischievious little monkey had rescued the Reys.

  Hans and Margret Rey had been on the run for nine days. For two more days, the train chugged across Spain, past olive groves and open plains to the border town of Fuentes de Oñoro.

  During the long customs check, Hans was glad that he still had some money in his pocket when the local clerks demanded inflated fees in pesetas. Finally the train crossed into Portugal.

  WAITING IN LISBON

  On Sunday, June 23, at one-thirty in the afternoon, Margret and Hans Rey arrived in Lisbon. The neutral capital had suddenly become "the city of refugees." Lisbon was now the safe haven for diplomats, and a temporary destination for thousands of others who were trying to leave Europe on one of the ships in the harbor.

  Somehow, despite the crowds, the Reys found a hotel room. A real bed... with pillows and clean sheets. And a bathtub with hot water. "Wonderful! And much too good!" Hans wrote in his pocket diary. Both of the Reys were asleep before nine that night.

  Right away the next morning they made phone calls, wrote letters to family and friends, and sent a telegram to their bank in Rio:

  have had a very narrow escape

  Baggage all lost

  have not sufficient money in hand

  While waiting for passage on a ship, the Reys' address for the next month was a few blocks from the straw-colored Tagus River: Rua do Ferregial de Baixo 33.

  After money was wired to their bank in Lisbon, Hans and Margret were able to shop for pajamas and other essential things, as well as paper and paints.

  The two artists were safe in neutral Portugal, but other parts of France, in addition to Paris, were now under the dark shadow of German occupation. For many Europeans, the war years of terror and fear were just beginning.

  On July 15, Margret and Hans had their required vaccination papers signed and stamped. Once again they began to pack their belongings. Far across the Atlantic was Rio... their next steppingstone to a new life in America.

  Opposite: H. A. Rey's June 21, 1940, diary page, written in French and German

  Clockwise from top left: Telegram sent by H. A. Rey from Lisbon, visa stamp, July 15, 1940; bank receipt; letters to editors written by the Reys from Lisbon

  AN OCEAN VOYAGE

  On July 21, Hans and Margret walked up the gangplank of the Angola, carrying their luggage and first-class tickets for a thirteen-day passage to South America.

  The wide bow of the Angola cut through the dark blue swells of the Atlantic as the steamship, crowded with refugees, headed out to sea.

  It docked briefly at Vicente, a town on the Portuguese island of Madeira, and then sailed southwest toward Rio.

  Each morning, the Reys could see the sun come up over the ocean from the small porthole in their stateroom.

  Almost all of the passengers on the Angola had fled from their homes because of the war. All had stories to tell at their tables in the dining room. When the Angola rolled and pitched in rough weather, the plates and silverware slid sideways with a clatter.

  Above: Passenger list of Angola

  WAITING IN RIO

  On August 4, the Angola cruised slowly along the coast of Brazil and into Rio de Janeiro's wide harbor.

  Once again, the Reys had to find lodging as they waited for passage to America on another ship. Their new address was

  Caixa 116

  Rio de Janeiro

  Brasil

  They called up old Brazilian friends, and they worried about those left behind in wartime Europe. Some of the letters they wrote to their families and editors took many weeks to arrive. Others were never received.

  On October 3, after two months of waiting, Hans and Margret boarded a Brazilian ship in Rio's sunny harbor to begin the last leg of their unexpected journey.

  One clear night, they took a late evening stroll on the windy deck. What bright stars!

  The ocean sky was like a huge blackboard dotted with tiny lights.

  All Hans needed was a stick of celestial chalk to connect these Atlantic stars and map his favorite constellations.

  A NEW HOME

  On October 14, 1940, four months after they bicycled out of Paris, the Reys saw the New York City skyline framed by a blue sky and brilliant sunshine. Their ship followed the wake of a sturdy tugboat into New York Harbor. Passengers began to point and cheer. There, ahead, was the Statue of Liberty, the landmark of freedom given to America in friendship by the country of France.

  Margret and Hans leaned against the ship railing and pulled up their collars, facing the cold, steady breeze. An unknown future in the United States lay ahead for the two artists.

  Like Fifi, the mischievous monkey whose book of adventures they had carried in a bicycle basket, Hans and Margret Rey had had a narrow escape from wartime Paris. But the Reys had talent and enough energy to climb mountains if they had to, in creating new books.

  That chilly October day in New York Harbor, Hans, Margret, and Fifi were on their way ... to a new home, on another continent, with stories to tell.

  Just a year later, their first book would be published in America, a book that would bring all three of them enduring fame and affection throughout the world. Like Hans Reyersbach and Margarete Waldstein, the little French monkey Fifi would change his name, and it would become one to remember ... the well-loved Curious George.

  Top: Interior art from Curious George, 1941, and cover art, below

  Left: Draft of Curious George

  After the Escape

  Paris remained occupied by German troops until its liberation on August 25, 1944. Nine months after arriving in the United States in October 1940, the Reys received the belongings they had packed up in Paris, including their publishing contracts and correspondence. No one knows how their luggage was shipped from France.

  Margret and Hans lived for the next twenty-three years in New York City They led modest lives, surrounded by books and their pet cocker spaniels. In November 1940, a new editor at Houghton Mifflin, Grace Hogarth, offered the Keys a contract for four books. The Reys had known Grace when she was a children's book editor at their British publisher, Cha
tto and Windus. Like Margret and Hans, she had also left Europe because of the wartime dangers. The contract included the manuscripts for The Adventures of Fifi (eventually retitled Curious George), Raffy and the 9 Monkeys (retitled Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys), and two lift-the-flap books, How Do You Get There? and Anybody at Home? Margret and Hans carried all of these with them when they hiked out of Paris.

  Curious George was published in the fall of 1941. It has sold over twenty-seven million copies and been translated into more than fourteen languages. The book of nursery songs that the Reys worked on while in Avranches was published in 1941 by Greystone Press. It was displayed in a bookstore window on New York's Fifth Avenue to celebrate the hope for international peace. Whiteblack the Penguin wasn't published until 2000, when Anita Silvey, who was then publisher of Houghton Mifflin Children's Books, rediscovered it in the Rey archives.

  On April 8, 1946, Margret and Hans Rey became United States citizens. In later years, the Reys built a summer home in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, where Hans set up his telescope to view the stars and night skies. In 1963 they moved from New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Margret and Hans had no children of their own, but their pictures and words have brought joy to millions of young readers around the world.

  H. A. Rey died in Boston on August 26, 1977, at the age of seventy-eight. His beloved "Peggy," cared for by a trusted friend, Lay Lee Ong, lived to celebrate her ninetieth birthday. Until her death on December 21, 1996, in Cambridge, Margret continued to be a strong voice and guardian for the Reys' texts and illustrations, and for the mischievous monkey George. In this new century, the humor and truth in their books continue to charm and inspire us.

  * * *

  A Partial Bibliography of Books by Margret and H. A. Rey

  BOOKS BY H. A. REY

  Zebrology. London: Chatto & Windus. 1937.

  Le Cirque. Paris: Hachette, 1938.

  Le Zoo. Paris: Hachette, 1938.

  Rafi et les 9 singes. Paris: Gallimard (NRF), [ 1939].

  Raffy and the 9 Monkeys. London: Chatto & Windus, 1939.

  Anybody at Home? London: Chatto & Windus, 1939.

  Au Clair de la Lune and Other French Nursery Songs. New York: Greystone Press, 1941

  Curious George. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941.

  How Do You Get There? Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941.

  Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942.

  A Christmas Manger: A New Kind of Punch-Out-and-Phy Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942.

  Elizabite: Adventures of a Carnivorous Plant. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1942; Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

  Uncle Gus's Circus: A New Kind of Cut-Out-and-Play Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1942.

  Uncle Gus's Farm: A New Kind of Cut-Out-and-Play Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942.

  Tommy Helps, Too. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.

  Where's My Baby? Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.

  Feed the Animals. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944.

  Curious George Takes a job. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.

  Curious George Rides a Bike. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

  The Stars: A New Way to See Them. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

  Find the Constellations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954.

  See the Circus. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956.

  Curious George Gels a Medal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

  Curious George Learns the Alphabet. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963.

  The Original Curious George. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

  BOOKS BY MARGRET AND H. A. REY

  How the Flying Fishes Came into Being. London: Chatto & Windus 1938.

  Pretzel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944.

  Spotty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1945.

  Curious George Flies a Kite. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958.

  Curious George Goes to the Hospital. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.

  The Complete Adventures of Curious George. Introduction by Madeline L'Engle. Afterword by Margret Rey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

  Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

  The Complete Adventures of Curious George. Introduction by Leonard S. Marcus. Retrospective Essay by Dee Jones. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2001.

  Curious George and Friends: Favorite Stories. Introduction by Margaret Bloy Graham. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

  Billy's Picture. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948; Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004.

  BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY H. A. REY

  The Park Book by Charlotte Zolotow. New York: Harper Books, 1944.

  Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944.

  * * *

  Picture Credits

  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Photochrom Collection:

  pages 6 (foreground left: LC-DIG-ppmsca-00415; foreground right: LC=DIG=ppmsca-00424; background: LC-DIG-ppmsca-00419),

  8 (LC-DlG-ppmsca-00404), 32 (background: LC-DIG-ppmsc-05136)

  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, The University of Southern Mississippi: title page (right),

  pages 1 (right), 4, 5 (both), 7 (bottom), 9 (all), 10, 11 (top and middle), 12 (middle and bottom right), 14 (foreground), 15, 18 (top),

  20–21 (all), 22 (letters), 23 (top, bottom left and right), 24 (foreground), 27 (bottom), 29 (bottom), 30–31 (all), 32 (left), 33 (top right), 34

  (bottom), 35 (top), 40 (both), 41 (bottom), 51 (inset), 62 (inset), 63 (all except label), 64, 70 (left)

  Bettman/CORBIS: pages 24 (background), 34 (top)

  Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS: pages 18 (bottom), 26 (top)

  Underwood and Underwood/CORBIS: pages 14 (background and top right)

  CORBIS: page 35 (bottom)

  © 2003 me & my BIG ideas:™ labels on pages 14, 18, 22, 32, 63

  Illustrations from Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys by H. A. Rey. Copyright 1942, and copyright © renewed 1969 by H. A. Rey.

  Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

  Illustrations from Curious George by H. A. Rey Copyright 1941, and copyright © renewed 1969 by Margret E. Rey. Copyright assigned to

  Houghton Mifflin Company in 1993. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

  Illustration by H. A. Rey from Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne. Copyright 1944 by Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright © renewed

  1972 by Emmy Govan West. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

  Illustrations from Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World by Margret and H. A. Rey. Copyright © 2000 by Lay Lee Ong. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company All rights reserved.

  Au Claire de la Lune and Other French Nursery Songs, Copyright © 1941 by H. A. Rey, Greystone Press.

  Copyright © renewed 1991 by the Rey Estate. Reprinted by permission of the Rey Estate.

  Text copyright © 2005 by Louise Borden

  Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Allan Drummond

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

  The text of this book is set in Pastonch and Freestyle Script.

  The illustrations are watercolor on paper.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Borden, Louise.

  The journey that saved Curious George : the true wartime escape of Margret and H. A. Rey / by

  Louise Borden ; illustrated by Allan Drummond.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-618-33924-8

  1. Rey, Margret—Juvenile literature. 2. Rey, H. A. (Hans Augusto), 1898—Juvenile literature.

  3. Authors, American—20th century—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Refugees, Jewish—United
<
br />   States—Biography—Juvenile literature. 5. Jewish authors—United States—Biography—Juvenile

  literature. 6. Curious George (Fictitious character)—Juvenile literature. 7. Children's stories—

  Authorship—Juvenile literature. 1. Title.

  PS3535.E924Z623 2005

  813'.52—dc22 2004001015

  ISBN-13: 978-0-618-33924-2

  Printed in Singapore

  TWP 10 9 8 7 6

  * * *