Pennies For Hitler (34 page)

Authors: Jackie French

But there were more stories of that time. The whispered memory of a friend’s father who had watched his fellow students thrown out a high window at a graduation day by a band of Nazis; the oral history of a Jewish boy who was told he had the ‘most Aryan head’ in the whole class; a neighbour who had escaped Nazi persecution in Germany as a small child, but then became a German enemy in England before finally — unexpectedly — discovering love and happiness in Australia.

All of these stories are in
Pennies for Hitler
, although altered. But the greater part of
Pennies from Hitler
came from a letter written to me by a fourteen-year-old boy.

This boy was in a class for children with special needs and
Hitler’s Daughter
was the first book he and his friends had ever read.

His letter said:

Dear Jackie French,

What I have learned from your book is to be very wary of anyone who tries to make you angry.

Yours,
James

I had never realised that message was in
Hitler’s Daughter
, but perhaps it’s the most important one there is.

So this book is for ‘James’. It is about a boy who isn’t there, who can’t be anywhere, because wherever he goes he is the enemy. It is about how hatred is contagious, but it is also about how kindness, love and compassion are contagious too. In a world where there are still destroyers, like the Nazis, there are also loving people like the Peaslake family and indomitable friends like Mud.

You never know quite what you create when you let stories loose.
Pennies for Hitler
is an adventure and, in a strange way, a love story too. But I suspect that readers will find more in it than I knew I’d written, just as with
Hitler’s Daughter
.

Acknowledgements

Pennies for Hitler
has been a long time growing. My gratitude to those who created the foundations of this book should probably begin with the gentle neighbour who helped me with my German homework, late at night. He told me with shame and anguish the stories of his childhood in Nazi Germany, which years later led me to write
Hitler’s Daughter
.

Since
Hitler’s Daughter
was published over a decade ago, there have been hundreds, or even thousands, of requests for a sequel. Perhaps one day I will write one, but
Pennies for Hitler
is not that book. Instead it is a companion volume.
Hitler’s Daughter
is about ‘a girl who wasn’t there’, a foster child of Hitler who knows almost nothing of the vast tragedies around her, even though she lives in the heart of the Nazi world.
Pennies for Hitler
is about a boy who must remain invisible, existing only as the illusion he must present to the world. The questions and themes they both face, the hatreds they need to conquer, are each the other face of the same coin.

This book owes much to the continual reinterpreting and brilliance of Eva, Tim, Sandie and the casts of
Hitler’s Daughter: The Play
. Usually when a book is published I tuck it away as ‘been there, done that’. Each new production made me rethink its themes, the times, the implications.

The Sydney Jewish Museum, and the inspiration of those who work and volunteer there, meant the scene of children measuring each other’s heads to judge their racial worth was added long after I thought
Pennies for Hitler
was finished.

I owe an enormous debt too to my high school English teacher, Gillian Pauli, for the weekly piles of books she lent me, not only opening the door to possibilities of literature far beyond those I could have found myself, but who also trusted a teenager to read
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
to see how contagious a lie and hatred can be.

To Kate Burnitt and Kate O’Donnell, so many, many thanks for your care and vigilance, and to Angela Marshall, as always, decades of gratitude for so many things.

Most of all, though, this book is due to the teamwork of Lisa Berryman and Liz Kemp. I gave them a short book. They demanded I fill the silences. Because of them I cried as I wrote versions two and three of
Pennies for Hitler
, but never doubted they were needed. Lisa may be the only publisher who can say ‘can do better’ with so much tact, support and inspiration to get it done. I owe you more than I can say.

Other titles by Jackie French

Historical

Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall Soldier on the Hill • Daughter of the Regiment Hitler’s Daughter • Lady Dance • The White Ship How the Finnegans Saved the Ship • Valley of Gold Tom Appleby, Convict Boy They Came on Viking Ships • Macbeth and Son Pharaoh • A Rose for the Anzac Boys Oracle • The Night They Stormed Eureka A Waltz for Matilda • Nanberry: Black Brother White

Fiction

Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach Summerland • Beyond the Boundaries A Wombat Named Bosco • The Book of Unicorns The Warrior — The Story of a Wombat • Tajore Arkle Missing You, Love Sara • Dark Wind Blowing Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories

Non-fiction

Seasons of Content • A Year in the Valley How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges Stamp, Stomp, Whomp The Fascinating History of Your Lunch Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading The Secret World of Wombats How High Can a Kangaroo Hop?

The Animal Stars Series

1. The Goat Who Sailed the World
2. The Dog Who Loved a Queen
3. The Camel Who Crossed Australia
4. The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded
5. The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger
6. Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent

Outlands Trilogy

In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood

School for Heroes

Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs

Wacky Families Series

1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate 3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome 5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla 7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken 8. My Pa the Polar Bear

Phredde Series

1. A Phaery Named Phredde
2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce
3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom
5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian
6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid
7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants

Picture Books

Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)
Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)
The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)
Baby Wombat’s Week (with Bruce Whatley)
Queen Victoria’s Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)
The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)
Christmas Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
A Day to Remember (with Mark Wilson)

About the Author

Jackie French
is a full-time writer and wombat negotiator. Jackie writes fiction and non-fiction for all ages, and has columns in the print media. Jackie is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. She writes across all genres — from picture books and history to science fiction.

www.jackiefrench.com

Chapter 37 is reproduced a condensed version of a letter sent by Prime Minister John Curtin to Australian schoolchildren on 30 September 1942. The letter later appeared in various publications.

Angus&Robertson
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
, Australia

First published in Australia in 2012
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au

The right of Jackie French to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

French, Jackie.