How Curious George Escaped the Nazis

On this episode of Our American Stories, Louise Borden is the author of "The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. The idea for
Curious George began in the creators Margaret and ha Ray's
earlier book about a lonely giraffe named Raffi, who were
friends nine monkeys, the youngest of which is called Fifi. Eventually,
the Rays decided to develop a story just about Fife.

(00:32):
This was one of the stories they smuggled out of
France just before the Nazi invasion during World War II,
only to learn when they got to the US that
American publisher Houghton Mifflin had doubts about the name Fifi
for a boy monkey, and so Fifi became George. Here
is Louise Bordon with the story. Louise is the author

(00:55):
of the Journey that Saved Curious George, the true wartime
escape of Margaret and h. A. Ray. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome to all who enjoy our American Stories. I'm the
author of many books for young readers, and my subjects
range from kindergarten to the Holocaust. When I find a
real event that inspires me, like the wartime escape of
Margaret and h Ray in nineteen forty, I begin a
winding road of research. A few years ago, an Ohio

(01:32):
kindergartener told his librarian before my visit to their school,
Louise Borden is a studier. The librarian corrected him and said.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
You mean Louise Borden is a student.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
And the kindergartener stated again, no, she's a studier. I
love that term studier. A project may take five or
even eight years until I hold a band book in
my hands, and I'm just the first person of a
publishing team who will create that new book, whether it's

(02:07):
thirty two pages or two hundred. Six of my books
are set during World War II. I tell young readers
that I didn't live through World War Two. My sisters
and I were born after the war occurred, but our
father served in the US Army Air Forces in the
Pacific and returned home, while his brother, a naval officer,

(02:29):
did not when his submarine was lost in nineteen forty four.
I've honored my uncle by writing Across the Blue Pacific,
illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker. When kids read our book
and say they're inspired by Ted Walker's wartime story, it's
very moving to me. Some years ago, I was asked

(02:50):
to speak at an event whose theme was telling the
American story. Besides my uncle, I've written about other inspiring Americans,
the Wright Brothers, Bessie Coleman, the first African American to
earn a pilot's license, the Children of Boston on the
eve of the American Revolution. So I'm pleased to join

(03:11):
in a podcast with the title Our American Stories and
tell you the story behind what I think is my
most important book, The Journey that Saved Curious George, The
True Wartime Escape of Margaret and h. A. Ray, published
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Join me on two journeys. My

(03:32):
own journey is a writer an amateur detective, and the
Journey of the Rays, who brought the story of a
Monkey and his friend, the Man with the Yellow Hat
to the United States. The famous book Curious George, created

(03:53):
by h. A. And Margaret Ray, is now eighty years old,
but George is ever young. Whenever Americans watched tragic events
on TV and see refugees around the world leaving their
homes to avoid hurricanes or earthquakes or war, I'm struck
by the parallels to June nineteen forty with an exodus

(04:16):
from Paris and other French cities when almost ten million
people were on the roads. What if you had to
flee from your home or town right now, what would
you take with you as you traveled into the unknown
along unfamiliar roads? And what would you leave behind? When

(04:38):
I was growing up, I knew those yellow Curious George
books on the shelves of my school library, but I
knew nothing about the author H. A. Ray, whose name
appeared on the covers. I had no clue what the
H and the A stood for. But I was a
reader and I loved social studies. And later, on my
sixth grade report card, my teacher, Missus Reeser, wrote, quote,

(05:02):
I think Louise will enjoy research all her life bon voyage.
When I see her words now, decades later, I know
wise Missus Reeser would be pleased that her prediction came true.
Here's a bit of background for my journey years ago
on a college study trip to Europe with fellow history students.

(05:24):
My sister and I were on our own for several days,
and we bicycled along country roads in Holland with just
a few items into baskets on our bikes. I never
imagined then how this experience would help me when I
wrote about Margaret and Hans Ray. Decades later. My senior
research at Dennison University was the European response to Hitler,

(05:48):
focusing on resistance movements and ordinary citizens set against the
canvas of wartime events. Ever since, I've held a lifelong
interest in World War Two. My first book for young
readers was published in nineteen eighty nine, and at the
time I was part owner of an independent bookstore and

(06:09):
subscribed to a trade journal, Publishers Weekly often called p W,
to learn more about the industry of books. Later, I
left my bookseller job to pursue the writing life, but
continued to read p W. After publishing six or seven
picture books, I began The Little Ships, the heroic Rescue

(06:32):
at Dunkirk. From my college studies, I knew about the
exodus of refugees from Paris to escape from the German
invasion and the plight of British and French soldiers trapped
on the beaches at Dunkirk. One day, at my desk,
surrounded by research for The Little Ships, I paged through

(06:52):
that week's Publishers Weekly and noticed a short autobiographical sketch
of Margaret and h A. Ray and In this snippet,
Margaret Ray said, in June nineteen forty, on a rainy
morning before dawn, a few hours before the Nazis entered,
we left Paris on bicycles with nothing but warm coats

(07:14):
and our manuscripts. Curious George among them, tied to the
baggage racks and started peddling south. We finally made it
to Lisbon by train, having sold our bicycles to customs
officials at the French Spanish border. Our migrations came to
an end one clear, crisp October morning in nineteen forty

(07:37):
when we saw the Statue of Liberty rise above the
harbor of New York and we landed in the USA. Wow,
how amazing bicycles. That's quintessential Curious George. Instantly I wanted
to know more. I found a map of France and

(07:57):
traced a line from Paris to the Spanish Order hundreds
of miles. Where did they take a train? I had
an image in my head of Margaret and Hans, unknown
artists in a sea of refugees, an image I would
carry with me over the next years of trying to
find their story. I kept marveling to myself, what an

(08:19):
incredible journey. I assumed there must be a book about this,
a book I wanted to read, But there wasn't. No
one had dusted off the history until a set of
wonder and curiosity was planted that morning when I read
Publishers Weekly. I labeled my first folder of notes June

(08:41):
nineteen forty. This file would grow to dozens of folders
and boxes of information, scattered across two rooms of our
house in Cincinnati. I emailed Hoton Mifflin to ask if
anyone there knew details about the Ray's escape. No one did.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
And you've been listening to Louise Borden, who a student,
A young student. I think aptly called her a studier,
because that's in the end what she was and is
is a studier of other people, A researcher, a fancy
a word, but I like studier, and this story is
as much about her as it is about Margaret and
ha Ray's story. In fact, they intersect. I had an

(09:22):
image of Margaret and ha Ray as unknown artists in
a sea of refugees. He tracked that bicycle trip, he
looked at it. What was that like? What an adventure?
He tracked that train ride? She was trying to walk
in the shoes of another. And that's what studiers do.
When we come back more with Louise Borden, studier, historian,

(09:46):
and just straight up great storyteller. Here on our American stories,

(10:09):
and we continue with our American stories, and with Louise Borden,
author of The Journey That Saved Curious George. We last
left off with this remarkable and young artistic couple landing
at the shores of New York. Let's continue with Louise Burden.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
I emailed Hoton Mifflin to ask if anyone there knew
details about the Ray's escape. No one did, but I
was pointed to lay Lee On, the executor of the
Ray estate. Margaret Ray had died recently at the age
of ninety. Oh how I regretted never being able to
meet her, and Ha had passed away in the late

(10:48):
nineteen seventies. Ley Lee, living in Boston, would become an
early and steady encourager of my vision for a book.
She told me she just shipped dozens of boxes from
the Ray's long creative lives to the De Grummen Collection
at the University of Southern Mississippi. So I called the

(11:10):
da Grumman's curator at the time, and asked her to
look for any envelopes with a return address in Paris,
and she called me back the Terrasse Hotel twelve Rue
Joseph de mais Off. I went to Paris to find
the terrass Hotel, but on my first visit there, yes,

(11:31):
it still existed and was beautiful. The owner and the
manager were away. No one could help me with any information.
Back home in Ohio, I found some biographical facts about
the Rays. I learned the H stood for Hans and
the A stood for Augusto, and that Hans's last name

(11:53):
was ryer's Bach. Hmmm, why did h A change his
name Terray? And when I learned Margaret and Hans were
both German Jews who'd grown up in Hamburg. I learned
Hans was born in eighteen ninety eight and Margaret was
born in nineteen o six, that their families knew each
other in Hamburg, that Hans, who loved animals and could

(12:17):
imitate the sounds of many, lived near the Hagenbeck Zoo
and served in World War One in the German Army
and was a self taught artist. That after the war,
due to hard economic times, he left Hamburg to live
in Rio, Brazil, Brazil. Soon I had folders labeled Hamburg

(12:38):
and Brazil. I learned that Margaret Margaret Woldstein had attended
art school and was a photographer and artist. And ten
years later, in nineteen thirty five, after Hitler came to
power in Germany and began his Nazi laws against Jews,
Margaret also left Hamburg and went to Rio. There she

(13:00):
connected with her family friend Hans Ryersbach, who was to
shorten his name to Ray, and the two artists were
married in August of nineteen thirty five. Very importantly, as
German born Jews, they became Brazilian citizens, and in nineteen

(13:20):
thirty six they sailed to Europe, taking pet Marmoseps with
them aboard their ship and traveled on to Paris to
spend their honeymoon. The images for a book for young
readers were all there. Here was the larger's story, beyond
their escape on bicycles. Without a contract from any publisher,

(13:42):
I headed to the de grumm And collection early on
a dark, rainy Ohio morning, leaving my house at five
thirty a m. The same time I would learn the
rais left Paris. When I finally arrived in Gulfport, I
rented a car I drove sixty miles north to Hattiesburg,
where the de Grumman collection is located. Most of the

(14:06):
documents were in black and white, but scattered across my
work table were the colors of the books created by
Margaret and h A and their now iconic illustrations. I
was instantly drawn to Hans's first book, published in France
and also in England, titled Raffy and the Nine Monkeys,
with its bright green cover about a giraffe and nine

(14:30):
little monkeys, including the youngest named Fifi. I spotted a
telegram among some papers have had a very narrow escape baggage,
all lost, asking for money to be wired to the Rays.
Signed Ray. Thankfully, the Rays were sabers and kept everything

(14:53):
from their publishing lives, royalty statements, editorial letters, drafts, ideas, sketches, proofs,
and black and white photos taken by Margaret in the
nineteen thirties and nineteen forties. I came home from this
first trip to the de Grummen with hundreds of xeroxed copies.

(15:13):
I would later enlarge these tiny pages and translate them
with the help of my sister Cindy and Missouri, and
in Cincinnati, my former high school French teacher, Renee Lowther,
who'd lived through the German occupation of France. I recall
the day Cindy and I, with pages strewn across her

(15:33):
dining room table, read the June twelfth, nineteen forty entry
in Hans's calendar, written in French, left Paris at five
thirty a m by bicycle. We realized then that ha
was going to tell us where he and Margaret went
on the two bicycles that he'd assembled from spare parts

(15:56):
in a Paris bike shop the day before the Rays
left the turn hotel. I soon had folders of maps
of France, Spain, and Portugal. I made tracking calendars for
the years nineteen thirty six to nineteen forty, writing on
various dates where they were, including a chateau in nineteen

(16:17):
thirty nine where the Rays visited friends for three months
working on art for a book about a curious monkey
named Fifi. And I added Hans's diary entries onto my
nineteen forty tracking calendar. Each day he'd scribbled a few
words about their journey south from Paris. Then I began

(16:38):
working on an early draft. When writing for children, I'm
always thinking about the structure of the book. How can
a long ago time and complicated political era best be
shown to young readers, and what will expand the text
in meaningful ways. I was enchanted by a small water

(17:01):
color painting at the d Grummen that Hans had made
in Hamburg at the age of eight Bingo, I said
to myself, that's where all begin this story in Hamburg
with Hans as a kid. Here's the opening text in
nineteen o six, Hans Augusto Reyersbach was a boy growing

(17:22):
up in Hamburg, Germany, a port city with canals and
a thousand bridges and the river elb that ran to
the North Sea. At the age of eight, Hans spent
many hours in the cold breeze near Hamburg's docks, watching
foreign ships and barges move along the Elbe. For the
rest of his life, Hans would love boats and rivers

(17:44):
and the sea. I took more research trips, returning to
Paris to stay in a balcony room at the Terrasse Hotel,
just as the Rays had stayed in a balcony room
where they spent their honeymoon in nineteen thirty six, but
instead of staying for a few weeks, the two artists
ended up living at the terrass for four years. On

(18:07):
that trip, I rented a car and drove out of Paris.
Gripping the wheel, I headed south along country roads to
a tomp tour and Orleans, using a nineteen forties map
of France, following the bicycle's footsteps that Hans had noted
in his calendar diary. Then in Orleans I veered off

(18:29):
their escape journey's route and took a train south to
find the chateau near Lectour. The owners a British couple
who became as amazed by the raised lives as I
was when I explained Hans and Margaret's years in France.
There are months working on book projects in a tower
room of this very chateau, and later their escape from Paris.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
And you've been listening to Louise Burden, and indeed Studyer
is becoming more and more well what she was tracker.
I mean, imagine from Hattiesburg to Paris and then using
a nineteen forties map, retracing the steps of this remarkable couple,
these artists. When we come back more of Louise Borden's trek,

(19:17):
discover the real life story and escape of Margaret and
h a Ray from the Nazis. Here on our American stories,

(19:39):
and we continue with our American stories and the story
of Louise bordon in many ways, and her journey to
find out about the journey that saved Curious George and
that would be Margaret an ha raised journey, and how
these two journeys in the end intersect. Let's pick up
with Louise Borden where we last left off.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
This was in the late days of cassette tapes, and
when I was in my car alone, driving hours to
travel to schools for author talks, I often listened to
an audio recording I'd found at the de Grumman collection.
Here's a clip from a WGBH Boston radio interview of
the Rays in May nineteen sixty six. This recording brought

(20:24):
me closer to the artists I was trying to write about.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
We were living in France when we did the first
Curtis George. George was really born in France. It's a
matter of fact, I tell you a little more precisely.
We did a book about a giraffe, and the giraffe
took nine little monkeys in and one of those little
monkeys was George. And then a while leader we thought

(20:49):
of a book about a monkey, and we did this
first Curious Judge. Never thought of a series. And then
over the years we get so many letters from children saying,
what can George do next? And won't you do another book?
So then we did another book. Tell us about Curious
George in the hospital. Did it start because you had
a child who had to go to the hospital.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
No, we don't really don't have children, and you have
Curious George started. Yes, it is sort of a child,
and it's one of the children who take care of
their parents. You know, we are in the monkey business,
you might say, tell.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Us about your background. It goes from Germany, But my
husband left it in Germany nineteen twenty five, where I
left it much later, and we met again in Brazil
in the thirties. I mean, you knew each other, and
we knew each other a little bit, and.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
I knew her when she was a child at her
father's house, and she doesn't remember. She came sliding down
the menaces and I was standing downstairs with her older sister,
and there she came. That's how I met her.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Aren't those voices so wonderful to listen to? After Journey
was published, at his office in New York, I met
Andre Schiffren, the son of Jacques Schiffren, Hans's editor at Galimar,
and showed him his father's letters to h Andre's fifth

(22:16):
birthday was the day the Germans marched into Paris. The
Schiffrin family would also leave France due to the German
invasion and because Jacques, who was Jewish, had lost his job.
Jacques was the editor who'd first encouraged h. A. Ray
to write for children and published Raffi in the Nine Monkeys.

(22:39):
He would settle in New York City like his friends
the Rays, and become a founder of the publishing house
Pantheon Books. The seven original Curious George books have now
been printed in the millions and are published in many languages.
I signed two book contracts with Hoton Mifflin, and Amy

(22:59):
Flynn became my editorial guide for both the book about
the Rays and the book about Ted Walker, my uncle.
My first visit to her Houghton Mifflin office in Boston
was on an October day. I walked up Boylston Street
with my manuscript, The True Escape of Curious George tucked
in my backpack, and it was snowing October, the calendar

(23:25):
month that the Rays arrived in the United States. I'd
recently written a book called Sleds on Boston Common, published
by Simon and Schuster, and so I told myself, don't
be nervous. I love snow, and today will be a
great day to discuss my heroes. Margaret and a j
who for years had walked on snowy Boston sidewalks, headed

(23:49):
to Houghton Mifflin to discuss their Curious George projects. At
some point, Amy and I began to discuss who would
illustrate the text, and I'd admired the work of Alan Drummond.
We structured the book with two parts, two artists, an
Escape from Paris, and after Alan finished his illustrations, they

(24:10):
seemed to me to be as iconic as H's book characters.
Whenever I opened The Journey that Saved Curious George, I
loved seeing Alan's watercolor map of the route the Rays
followed from Paris on those bicycles before they boarded a
train in Orleans and continued on to the French border

(24:32):
and then on through Spain and Portugal, carrying with them
a few possessions and precious manuscripts, including one about a
curious monkey named Fifi who had a friend the man
with the Yellow Hat. After spending weeks in Lisbon, called
the city of refugees at the time, the Rays took

(24:52):
a ship, the Angola, and sailed across the Atlantic to Rio,
holding those important brazil In passports. Then with visas to
travel on to the US. They boarded a ship in
Rio and sailed into New York Harbor on October fourteenth,
nineteen forty. Hans stated in a letter in the archives,

(25:16):
one never forgets the day you arrive in America. Allan's
wonderful map at the end of the book shows these
sea voyages. Now kids can join the journey too. I
want them to know those roads the Rays followed and
the courage it took to travel them. Now kids can

(25:38):
be inspired by the sea journey of Margaret and Hans
and the artistic talent they brought to America. Kids can
also find in an insection of the book some of
the photographs that helped me as a detective. I want
them to see, as I did in Missus Reeser's class,
that research is intriguing and fun, not boring. Imagine our

(26:01):
world without Curious George. In late September nineteen forty, three,
months after the Rays escape from Paris, a Nazi ordinance
required all foreign Jews living in the occupied zone of
France to register at police stations. Beginning in June nineteen

(26:24):
forty one, thousands of foreign Jews were deported. Margaret and
Hans would no doubt have been on one of those
trains to Hitler's camps. Have had a very narrow escape,
Hans wrote on that long ago telegram to relatives, A
very narrow escape, isn't that always George. George gets into

(26:47):
mischief because of his antics and his curiosity, but then,
in each book, with those familiar yellow covers, gets out
of trouble for a happy ending. One of my favorite
illustrations from the first of the seven original Curious George
books shows the man with the yellow hat walking down
a ship gangplank, and ahead of him is George holding

(27:11):
a passport. Today, George is our ambassador for reading around
the world and also for curiosity. Since the publication of
the Journey that saved Curious George. There have been exhibits
across the US, and even an animated documentary about Margaret
and Hans. As Ha stated in the recording I listened

(27:36):
to on that cassette tape years ago, we are in
the monkey business. Isn't this the quintessential American story of
two artists who fled wartime Europe and arrived in the US,
bringing their ideas and art. The light of the illustrations
created by Ha, a man born in eighteen ninety eight,

(28:00):
still shines across libraries and bookstores in our twenty first century.
When I'm typing away at my desk, the courage and
optimism of Margaret and Hans are always steady inspiration to me.
H once said, Let's think of the future. That's where
we shall spend the rest of our lives. How lucky

(28:24):
we are that the Rays and their stories and their
ever young book character George are still with us because
of an escape on bicycles, because of help along the way,
because Margaret and h A sailed into New York Harbor,
because they became proud US citizens six years later. What

(28:48):
a wonderful ending and also a wonderful beginning to this
beautiful American story. Now George belongs to all of us.
So What's our Story? Two?

Speaker 1 (29:06):
And a terrific job on the production by Greig Hengler,
and a special thanks to Louise Borden for sharing her
story with us. And she is the author of the
Journey that saved Curious George, the true wartime escape of
Margaret and h A. Ray, and my goodness, no truer
words could ever be said. On October fourteenth, nineteen forty,

(29:27):
this couple comes to the New York Harbor. One never
forgets the day you arrive in America. My grandparents both
told me that again and again. Let's think of the future.
Ha told his bride That's where we'll spend the rest
of our lives. And that's why people come here too.
Not for the past, they're escaping that the coming for

(29:48):
the future and for future generation. The story of Louise Borden,
the story of h A and Margaret Ray, the story
of two artists escaping from the Nazis, and best of all,
the story of this character, George, who made the world
a more beautiful place. Here on our American Stories