From Germany to England: Girls in Exile in the
Works of Judith Kerr and Irene N. Watts
McGillicuddy, Áine
(2016)
From Germany to England: Girls in Exile in the
Works of Judith Kerr and Irene N. Watts.
In: Brinson, Charmian and Hammel, AndreaORCID: 0000-0002-6764-923X, (eds.)
Exile and Gender 1.
Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 17
.
Brill, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 188-206.
ISBN 978-90-04-31379-8
This essay examines the differing experiences of girls growing up in exile from Nazi
Germany in two fictional works, Out of the Hitler Time: One Family’s Story and
Escape from Berlin, based on the real life experiences of children’s authors, Judith
Kerr and Irene N. Watts. Blending the biographical, the historical and the literary,
what emerges is a study of how these young refugees negotiate new linguistic and
cultural spaces and cope with everyday life in unfamiliar environments. The often
unstable nature of life in exile will be explored against the backdrop of the loss of
language, home and citizenship.