Curious about Curious George?

Here’s a #WW2 thread about the little orphaned monkey who escaped Nazi Europe and found refuge in America.

Hans Augusto Reyersbach was born into a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany, 1898. Hans had an interesting childhood, growing up next to the Hamburg Zoo. Living so close to the animals, he developed a curious attraction to them and would spend hours sketching the animals.

Hans, like every other German young man, served during World War I, and there were many late nights in the trenches that he spent drawing – animals, stars, or fellow soldiers. After the Great War, Hans left Germany to find work, and he settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Margarete Elisabeth Waldstein, born 1906, was also Jewish and from Hamburg. She studied art and was formally trained in Dusseldorf and then in Munich, but as Hitler’s power grew, she fled Germany in early 1935. After a brief stay in London, she also settled in Rio de Janeiro.

They met, and within four months later, they were married. They changed their names to Hans and Margret Rey and became official Brazilian citizens. They traveled to Paris for their honeymoon, which then turned into living there for four years.

While in Paris, they began to write and illustrate books together. Cecily G and the Nine Monkeys, caught the attention of a French publisher. This children’s story was lighthearted, telling the story of Cecily the Giraffe and her jungle friends - including a monkey named Fifi.

Almost immediately after publishing the book, the Nazis invaded Poland. In June of 1940, with the Nazis closing in on Paris, Hans and Margret went to a bike shop to purchase two bikes to flee the city. However, there were no bikes left, only bike parts.

Throughout the night, Hans built two bikes from spare parts; Margret packed what food and clothing possible, the last bit of their money, and draft manuscripts of the children’s animal stories.

They fled Paris, hidden by strangers in homes or barns, pedaled their way to Spain where they sold their bikes and took a train to Lisbon. Due to their Brazilian citizenship and passports and the changing of their names, Hans and Margret Rey were able to board a ship to the USA.

Together, they continued to write their animal adventure stories. However, the Rey’s American publishers thought the name Fifi was too French, so like Hans and Margret went from Reyersbach to Rey, Fifi became George.

And like Hans and Margret real life story, George’s first adventure is about a little orphaned monkey that was rescued by a stranger in a yellow hat and brought home to America by boat.

On October 26, 1941, the animal manuscripts that had escaped the terror of Nazism, traveled throughout Europe and across the ocean, became a new children’s book called Curious George.