Judith Kerr

Judith Kerr (Berlin, 1923 – London, 2019) was a German-born British writer and illustrator best known for children's books. Her work, much of it drawn from her own childhood and the experience of persecution, has been read by generations of young readers in many countries.

Kerr was born into a German Jewish family. Her father, Alfred Kerr, was a well-known theatre critic who had openly criticised the Nazis. In early March 1933, the family left Germany the morning of the election, after hearing that the party planned to confiscate their passports and arrest him. The Nazis burned his books soon after. The Kerrs went first to Switzerland, then to France, and finally settled in Britain in 1936.

During the war she worked for the Red Cross, caring for wounded soldiers, and later won a scholarship to the Central School of Art and Design. She met her future husband, the screenwriter Nigel Kneale, at the BBC canteen, and went on to write for television herself. Only after her own children began learning to read did she start writing and illustrating books, which became her main career.

Her picture books are simple in language and gentle in humour, with a strong sense of how a child sees the world. In the Out of the Hitler Time trilogy she wrote about the flight from Germany, life as a refugee, wartime London and the postwar years, with restraint and close attention to a child's feelings.

Her legacy lies in the enduring popularity of her picture books and in the value of her autobiographical novels for teaching young readers about the Holocaust. She was appointed an OBE in 2012 for services to children's literature and Holocaust education, and a bilingual school in London was named after her in 2013.