Curious George's Incredible Escape From The Nazis
By November 21, 2021
Curious George, the spunky monkey of the eponymous series of children's books, is a beloved character with a knack for wiggling his way out of sticky situations. It only makes sense, then, that his "parents," husband and wife authors H.A. and Margret Rey (real names Hans Reyersbach and Margarete Waldstein), know a little something about wiggling out of sticky situations themselves. Like, Nazi sticky.
Becoming H.A. And Margret
Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1898, Hans Reyersbach grew up in a well-to-do, educated Jewish family who lived near the Hagenbeck Zoo. Reyersbach loved to visit the zoo to watch the animals, mimic their sounds, and eventually draw them. The family was also friendly with the Waldsteins, another clan of Jewish Hamburgers with a daughter named Margarete eight years younger than their Hans.
Reyersbach joined the German army during World War I, after which he made his living drawing and painting circus posters while attending college classes before moving to Rio de Janeiro in the '20s. Meanwhile, Margarete worked as a photographer, moving to London when Hitler started rising to power and then Brazil, where she met back up with her childhood friend. They got married and started an advertising agency, but they found that their Brazilian customers had trouble pronouncing their German names, so they changed them to the names that would be known around the world. They even owned two of their own marmoset monkeys.
A Hasty Retreat
The newly christened Reys moved to Paris in the '30s, where they began writing and illustrating children's books. Hot on the heels of their 1939 breakout success, Cecily G. And The Nine Monkeys, they began developing a spin-off featuring a certain inquisitive primate when war broke out in Europe. They had just signed a publishing contract for what would become Curious George and received a cash advance, which proved to be a godsend when the Nazis marched into Paris in May 1940.
Knowing they would be targeted by Hitler's army, the Reys decided to flee to Brazil. Hans used spare parts to build two makeshift bicycles, Margret Rey carefully packed their manuscript and sketches, and they escaped on four wheels mere hours before the city fell. Those homemade bikes got them as far as Bayonne, France, where they secured passage to Spain, then Portugal, and eventually Brazil.
